The U.S. Air Force has officially named its newest Collaborative Combat Aircraft, giving the FQ-42A the name “Vengeance” and the FQ-44A the name “Fury.”
The names match an ambitious effort to transform the service with autonomous aircraft operating at serious scale.
Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink revealed the names Monday during a keynote address at the Air & Space Forces Association’s 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference.
He also announced that the Air Force intends to place at least 500 autonomous aircraft into service by 2032.
The Collaborative Combat Aircraft, commonly called CCAs, are expected to execute many of the same missions currently performed by manned fighters.
That goal puts Vengeance and Fury at the center of the Air Force’s push toward a significantly different force.
“Because of the steps we are taking today, we will have a significantly different force by 2032,” Meink said at the conference.
“By then, our special operators will have the ability to employ thousands of autonomous one-way attack systems, and we will have autonomous fighters like the Collaborative Combat Aircraft.”
Meink also emphasized the speed at which the aircraft moved from contract awards to actual flight. That process took fewer than 18 months, a pace he called “almost unheard of in aircraft development.”
General Atomics’ FQ-42A conducted its first test flight in August 2025, more than a year after the company received its contract.
Anduril, the second defense company assigned to produce the FQ-44A, rolled its first aircraft off the assembly line in July after flight testing in October 2025.
The service recently completed its first live fire test involving Anduril’s FQ-44A. During that event, the aircraft conducted a complete strike beyond line of sight against a simulated target using an inert AIM-120.
The Collaborative Combat Aircraft program represents only part of the service’s autonomous aviation campaign.
Meink said the Air Force is also “aggressively” pursuing other classes of autonomous aircraft for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and strike missions.
He pointed to the importance of ISR strike platforms during Operation Epic Fury.
According to Meink, the service has used both the MQ-9 Reaper and the Unmanned Long-endurance Tactical Reconnaissance Aircraft, known as ULTRA.
The Air Force is also advancing development of Massed Modular Aircraft, or MMAs.
These aircraft are envisioned as a family of affordable, multi role strike platforms intended to succeed the MQ-9 Reaper.
Meink said the service plans to field 100 MMAs in 2029. He asserted that they would cost less than the Collaborative Combat Aircraft and only a fraction of what the manned aircraft under construction today cost.
“MMAs will provide affordable, attributable, long-range strike, and we will be able to field them at scale,” Meink said.
“We expect to have tens of thousands in the inventory by 2030. Matter of fact, they’re already being used today.”
Those projected numbers make the MMA effort considerably larger than the service’s stated objective of having at least 500 autonomous aircraft in service by 2032. Both programs reflect the scale of the autonomous force described by Meink during his conference address.
Turning those plans into operational aircraft will require more than sharp names and fast prototypes.
Meink said Congress and industry partners must supply additional resources so the Air Force can generate prototypes and move into production at scale.
For the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, the service’s fiscal 2027 budget request included $996.5 million for procurement.
It also requested $150 million in advanced procurement for the following fiscal year and $1.37 billion for continued research and development.
The total program request was listed at $2.37 billion.
With Vengeance and Fury already flying or moving through testing, the Air Force is pressing for the resources needed to translate a rapid development effort into hundreds of autonomous aircraft by 2032.
