For the first time, an F-22 Raptor pilot has given orders to an Anduril YFQ-44A Fury collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) while both aircraft were in the air. The Air Force and Anduril announced the event on Oct. 16. In what both call an "airborne tactical-control demonstration," flown earlier in October from Edwards Air Force Base, the Raptor pilot sent high-level instructions to the uncrewed jet. The Fury's onboard autonomy then worked out how to carry them out.

The Air Force's own release could not be retrieved directly. Its account of the flight comes here through The War Zone and The Aviationist, which both quote it. According to that release, the F-22 pilot "served as an airborne quarterback, issuing high-level tactical directives to a single YFQ-44A." The Fury's autonomy software "interpreted and executed those directives in real time, conducting dynamic flight maneuvers and simulated combat tasks."

An Anduril spokesperson confirmed to TWZ that this was a first for both an F-22 and the Fury. The aircraft was a pre-production YFQ-44A.

What actually happened

Anduril's description of the sortie is short. The Fury and the F-22 took off separately from Edwards and joined up in the air. The Raptor pilot then sent the drone an updated mission plan over a tactical data link. The pilot was not steering the Fury. The pilot gave it a new task, and the aircraft decided how to fly it.

That split is the core of the CCA concept as the Air Force has described it. Anduril has said the same thing before. In October 2025, the company's Jason Levin said that no operator flies the Fury with a stick and throttle behind the scenes, as C4ISRNET reported. The early-October flight is the first public sign that this model works with a crewed fighter giving the orders from another cockpit.

Several organizations took part. According to TWZ, the test involved the 412th Test Wing, the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron, the 309th Software Engineering Group, the Experimental Operations Unit (EOU), the F-22 System Program Office and the CCA Software Autonomy and Teaming Branch. The Air Force has not publicly described the simulated combat tasks in any detail, and neither it nor Anduril has said how the F-22 was configured or how the pilot entered the directives.

How this differs from earlier flights

Fury has flown alongside crewed fighters before, but without taking orders from them. Last month, according to TWZ, Anduril disclosed that it had flown in formation with F-35s, with no commands passed between them. The Aviationist reports that an F-35A flew in formation with a YFQ-44 in July 2026. It places those flights within a summer series in which crewed fighters first flew with both Increment 1 designs, the YFQ-44 and the YFQ-42.

The weapons work has also moved forward. Fury fired an AIM-120 AMRAAM for the first time earlier this year. The Aviationist notes that captive-carry AIM-120 tests came before that live shot.

Before any of this, the Air Force put its own people in charge of the aircraft. In April 2026, the EOU, the unit tasked with writing the first tactics, techniques and procedures for bringing CCAs into the force, ran experimental tests of the YFQ-44A at Edwards, Janes reported. C4ISRNET reported that EOU airmen flew a series of sorties and handled the basic ground work themselves: launch and recovery, turning the aircraft between flights, pre- and post-flight checks, and weapons loading. They also tasked the aircraft directly during taxi and flight. Neither outlet covered the F-22 demonstration, which came months later. Their reporting shows what the unit had already learned about the aircraft before a fighter pilot was handed control.

Why the Raptor is first

The F-22 is the obvious first partner. According to The Aviationist, the Air Force has called the Raptor the "threshold platform" for the CCA program and plans to pair CCAs with F-22s first. That puts Raptor-to-CCA control at the center of the program's plans, not just a test-range curiosity.

Anduril is not the only company working on it. TWZ notes that General Atomics announced a similar demonstration in November 2025, in which an F-22 worked with its MQ-20 Avenger. Both programs are trying to answer the same question: how much extra work a single-seat fighter pilot can take on. TWZ points to past concerns about increased workload for pilots in single-seat fighters managing drones through tablet-style interfaces. The "high-level directives" language in the Air Force release suggests the answer the service wants. The pilot assigns the task, and the CCA works out the details.

Why It Matters

The CCA program depends on whether one pilot can direct uncrewed aircraft without being overloaded. Formation flying shows that a drone can stay with a fighter. Carrying out a new mission plan sent mid-flight shows that it can take orders from one. The early-October sortie is the first public evidence that the Fury can do the second with an F-22, the aircraft the Air Force has chosen to pair with CCAs first.

The planned numbers are large. TWZ reports a goal of at least 500 Increment 1 CCAs by 2032. Anduril and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems were picked for Increment 1 in April 2024, according to Janes. At that scale, how pilots command these aircraft becomes a matter of force design, not just software.

The next test is bigger. Lt. Col. Lyndon "OTTO" Bartlett, the EOU's Director of Operations, said at the Air & Space Forces Association's September conference, where TWZ was present, that Emerald Flag in December will be the first large-force exercise for the CCAs. One Raptor commanding one Fury at Edwards is a controlled first step. A large-force exercise brings more aircraft, more traffic on the data links and more demands on pilots' attention. It will be a much harder test of whether the quarterback approach works beyond a single sortie.

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