Name: Andurils unmanned AI-powered fighter jet Fury makes first flight
Uploaded: 2025-11-10T00:57:54.056Z
Duration: 4 min 57 s
Description: A Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the AI-powered fighter YFQ-44A has begun flight testing, as General Atomics takes to the sky as well.

A Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the AI-powered fighter YFQ-44A has begun flight testing, as General Atomics takes to the sky as well.

California

Anduril's unmanned, AI-powered fighter jet known as Fury has successfully completed its first test flight, marking a milestone in the development of autonomous military aircraft. The jet operates independently using artificial intelligence, with human oversight for mission aborts and lethal actions, and is designed to work collaboratively with piloted fighter jets.

The Pentagon selected Anduril as one of two companies to develop collaborative combat aircraft, with plans for mass production in the United States. The program aims to enhance pilot safety and operational reach, while also addressing concerns about foreign adversaries' advancements in autonomous weaponry and the ethical implications of AI in warfare.

Anduril's unmanned AI-powered fighter jet 'Fury' makes first flight

60 Minutes Overtime. This spring, we introduced you to Fury, a jet with no cockpit and no pilot, built by the defense tech startup Andral. Now, this futuristic fighter has taken a very real step forward, its first test flight. This is the moment Andral's unmanned jet Fury left the runway for the first time. Andral calls Fury semi-autonomous and says it isn't piloted remotely. Instead, it operates by itself, carrying out mission plans and adjusting its flight without human input. It returns to land when commanded, and the whole time, a person monitors its actions rather than directly flying it. Fury is a collaborative combat aircraft, or CCA. It's powered by artificial intelligence to operate together with fighter jets that have pilots. This system is designed to use software to autonomously control it and work with a manned quarterback sitting in a fighter jet alongside it, sitting in an F-35 or something like that. Brian Schimpf is the CEO and co-founder of Andral. These are first and foremost about protecting pilots' lives. These fly out ahead of manned fighters, and they're able to find the enemy first, be able to engage the enemy well before a manned fighter has to be seen or is in range. So these are really about providing that deterrence by putting systems well out in front of manned fighters. Andral told us Fury has a kill switch that allows a human operator to abort a mission by hitting a button. Fury also requires a person to approve lethal actions like firing missiles. Andral says Fury's completed a successful test flight, controlling its own throttle, altitude and navigation under supervision from the ground. It's a milestone the company reached in just over 18 months from concept to flight. The Pentagon selected Andral as one of two companies to create a CCA, choosing it over a number of prime defense contractors. Whether or not the Air Force chooses to go with Andral, the company says its Fury jets will be mass produced in the United States, possibly for a lot less money than a traditional fighter jet. The goal of these systems is to be mass producible, and we tried to eliminate really every bottleneck we could find around what makes an aircraft hard to produce. So really simple things that we've been able to do are design the landing gear, for example. Instead of using very exquisite, big aircraft landing gear, which are hard to produce, really limited supply, we designed it so it can be built in any machine shop in America. Instead of using a military engine, we've been able to use a commercial business jet engine that are mass produced and readily available. And we've designed nearly every part of this that can be made in hundreds of different places within the U.S. from lots of different suppliers. Andral isn't the only unmanned jet in the air. General Atomics, best known for drones like the MQ-9 Reaper, has also flown its own entry into the Air Force's collaborative combat aircraft program. This jet, called the YFQ-42A, completed its first flight this August, another sign that the Air Force's plan for autonomous wingmen is accelerating fast. But Andral founder Palmer Luckey says his company doesn't have its sights set on General Atomics. I think we're racing against China. We talk about this all the time internally. Our adversary is not other defense contractors. It's hostile foreign powers that are fundamentally misaligned with the American way of life who are trying to achieve massive economic and military overmatch and destroy our economy, destroy our military, and destroy our ability to influence people around the world. What do we know about China's capabilities? Do they have some version of the Fury? I think this is a discussion that is not appropriate for national television, unfortunately. But I will say this. We have a pretty good idea of what they're up to, and it is not going to be easy to match. We are up against a very competent, very credible adversary that in a lot of serious ways has big advantages that we do not have. We asked Palmer Luckey about moral considerations. What does warfare look like when there are lethal autonomous weapons? It's a scary idea to some people. It's a scary idea, but I mean, that's the world we live in. I'd say it's a lot scarier, for example, to imagine a weapons system that doesn't have any level of intelligence at all. There's no moral high ground in making a landmine that can't tell the difference between a school bus full of children and Russian armor. It's not a question between smart weapons and no weapons. It's a question between smart weapons and dumb weapons.

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