Watch Anduril's Fury Fire an AMRAAM for the First Time

[00:00:00]For the first time ever, one of America's new AI drone fighters just launched a live air-to-air missile at a beyond visual range target. Not just successfully demonstrating the aircraft's ability to fly and fight, but importantly, the AI's ability to identify and track targets at long range. Now, this test saw Anduril's prototype YFQ-44 Fury launch an AIM-120 AMRAAM, or advanced medium-range air-to-air missile, at a simulated beyond line of sight target. Now, according to Anduril's VP of autonomous air power, Mark Shu shner, the drone took off from Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California under the control of Anduril's own Lattice Autonomy Suite.

[00:00:45]That Lattice Suite then identified and, as Shu shner put it, "ingested the target track and notified the operator in a nearby aircraft that the drone had a target and it was ready to fire." That human operator then confirmed the target and gave the order to fire, followed by the drone executing that command. And that is an important part to emphasize because by DoD regulation, a human operator has to make the decision to fire. Now, seeing Fury fire this missile from its rails does make for some good content, but it's important to understand that just launching an air-to-air missile isn't in itself necessarily all that special for a combat drone these days. In fact, the first time a drone, technically a remotely piloted aircraft or RPA, launched an air-to-air missile in combat was 24 years ago already when an American MQ-1 Predator launched an AIM-92 Stinger at an Iraqi MiG-25. Now, that modified infrared guided Stinger missed and the MiG-25 ended up taking that Predator down, ending the first ever drone versus human pilot air-to-air dog fight with a win for team meatbag.

[00:02:00]Now, since then, MQ-9 Reapers have been slinging Sidewinders at airborne targets since at least 2017, and they've been photographed carrying the new AIM-9X Block 2 air-to-air missiles since 2020.

[00:02:14]Now, earlier this year, MQ-9s also added the newly fielded AGR-20, also known as the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System 2, to their air-to-air arsenals, which is a much smaller and cheaper air-to-air weapon based on the Hydra 70 mm unguided rocket designed specifically to engage one-way attack drones. Now, we've also seen MQ-9s strike airborne targets, including some alleged UAPs, with laser-guided Hellfire missiles in combat. But, it was only recently that collaborative combat aircraft, or drone wingmen, started launching larger beyond visual range weapons like the AMRAAM and other radar-guided missiles. Turkey's Bayraktar Kızılelma has the distinction of being the first of these loyal wingman drones to launch a radar-guided missile back in November of 2025, though the degree of autonomy involved in that shot has since been contested, and it's possible that the drone was operating as more of an RPA, like the MQ-9, than as an autonomous platform at the time.

[00:03:22]Australia then might actually hold the title for being the first to launch a BVR weapon from a drone wingman that wasn't under direct remote control with Boeing's MQ-28 Ghost Bat just a few weeks later in December of 2025.

[00:03:37]However, Anduril may now hold the distinction of being the first with a CCA drone to launch one of those BVR missiles that actually already has a production contract, has already entered serial production, and is already slated to enter actual operational service as an autonomous combat and not ISR platform as soon as 2028, where it will join General Atomics FQ-42 Dark Merlin as the first tranche of AI drone fighters operated by the US Air Force.

[00:04:09]Now, these drones are known as Increment One within the CCA program, and they're focused specifically on rapidly fielding scalable capabilities for air-to-air air combat with further increments planned for other specialized roles. Now, Anduril's Fury, which will be known as the FQ-44 in operational service, is roughly 20 ft long with a 17-ft wingspan. It's got a maximum speed of about.95 Mach, a service ceiling of 50,000 ft, and the ability to pull maneuvers that exceed 9 Gs. This small and downright agile drone can carry two AIM-120 AMRAAMs on external pylons, and is expected to offer an unrefueled range of greater than 800 mi. The production representative prototype of the FQ-44 made its first flight on Halloween day in 2025.

[00:05:02]But, the hardware is really only half of this story, because the real question isn't if these jets can fly or launch air-to-air missiles, because as I said, drones have been doing that stuff since I was in high school. The real question is how capable the AI autonomy suites controlling the drones actually are, because a good drone with a bad pilot isn't actually a very good drone at all.

[00:05:26]And, unfortunately, that is the part that's invisible to all of us outside of these programs. All we really know is that all of America's CCA drones are being designed with open system software architecture to allow them to fly under the autonomous control of any suite developed within the Pentagon's established autonomy requirements. And currently, Anduril, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX Collins Aerospace, and Shield AI are all still fighting over whose AI will ultimately get to control these jets in the fight with a decision about that expected to come next summer. And before you go, don't forget to download the Sandbox News app, like and subscribe down below, leave me a comment, and all that jazz.

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