Two aviation companies under contract to develop armed, unmanned aircraft and control systems for the U.S. Navy teased what they are working on this week during the Singapore Air Show, US Naval Institute News reports.
Anduril will leverage elements for the Navy from the autonomous collaborative combat aircraft under development for the U.S. Air Force to develop unmanned aircraft for the U.S. Navy’s iteration of the program, according to company leadership.
“It will be a different aircraft, but we’re going to leverage similar components, design philosophies,” said Jason Levin, Anduril’s senior vice president of Air Dominance and Strike, referencing Anduril’s YFQ-44 “Fury.”
Levin was among the Anduril and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems representatives at the Singapore Air Show 2026 exhibition this week. According to Levin, Anduril is not modifying the U.S. Air Force’s Fury – which is not aircraft carrier capable – to meet the Navy’s requirements but will use the development path already carved out by Fury. The programs sharing similar components, avionics, task architecture and software development could allow the Navy’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program processes to be carried out more quickly.
In Anduril’s development of Fury, the CCA went from clean sheet to first flight in around 500 days. Building a CCA for the Navy would require Anduril to look closely at the Navy’s concept of operations for the CCA and tailor their entry accordingly. Levin did not disclose more specifics of the Navy’s CCA requirements and program deadlines.
Anduril’s YFQ-44 Fury, under development for the Air Force’s CCA program, is in competition with the General Atomics YFQ-42A. The Navy wants its own version of the “uncrewed, modular, interoperable, interchangeable and versatile platforms” that it can field from an aircraft carrier, USNI News previously reported.
The Navy contracted five aviation companies to develop armed, unmanned aircraft and control systems. General Atomics, Boeing, Anduril and Northrop Grumman on contract for the conceptual design of the CCA, while Lockheed Martin is under contract to build the common control system. Northrop Grumman was not present at the Singapore Air Show, while Boeing and Lockheed Martin declined comment.
General Atomics’ Gambit series of modular CCAs are based on a core platform that encapsulates a single set of common hardware such as landing gear, baseline avionics, chassis, and other essential functions that establish a standardized baseline to allow the easy configuration of variants with different engines, fuselages, wings and other system and component characteristics.
According to a company representative, the design process is still in the early stages and the specifics have not yet been defined.
While General Atomics announced the Gambit 5 Carrier-based Operations CCA in 2024, the representative stated that the CCA developed for the U.S. Navy could be a new Gambit variant, depending on the Navy’s requirements.
The U.S. Navy is still refining its concept of operations for CCAs, USNI News understands. The service issued a release in January announcing it had conducted trials to develop tactics and strategies for CCA operations with the F-35 Lightning II fighter.
A key factor for consideration was how expendable would the CCA be in operations, a defense industry source told USNI News.
“Is the CCA something you can deploy and afford to lose in combat or is it something where you have to factor in mission survivability,” the industrial source said.
The expandability factor becomes more acute for a carrier-based CCA given the space limitations for embarks, which would result in only a certain number of autonomous drones being on board. There is also maintenance support for industry to consider, according to the industrial source, who noted that CCAs will likely not operate as often as manned aircraft. This would mean companies must keep maintenance facilities and personnel for CCAs available but will have little work to do.
