Anduril Industries / Blue Force Technology CCA, FQ-44 Fury

Given that YFQ-44 unlike YFQ-42 doesn't seem to think much about the idea of reducing its radar signature, it may be suitable for future adaptations utilizing ECM equipment, given that it won't hide easily anyway. If I look at the two increment one CCAs one strikes me as more formidable and "high end" while the other seems less sophisticated but more oriented towards ease of manufacturing, perhaps maintenance as well.

I think both can find roles seperate from the other, depending on where the CCA is going. They surely aren't of the same caliber as the likes of Russia's Su-70 or the various high end Chinese designs. But these are significantly larger, arguably more expensive and have a much more complex mission profile. Something more in line with later envisioned increments in the CCA timeline.

I have to admit though, I cannot quite grasp why for the first increment Boeing's MQ-28 Ghost Bat wasn't picked, a system already developed and ordered by close ally Australia. Common procurement and operation could reduce cost and ease interoperability of US and AUS air formations in the Indo-Pacific. I'm aware it's a program that was carried out by Boeing on the behalf of Australia, if I remember correctly. But what stopped the US from simply joining it? Boeing is a US manufacturer, and both the US and Australia are five eyes members and cooperate on various matters, sometimes quite sensitive matters.

And if I look at the YFQ-42 and YFQ-44, the MQ-28 doesn't seem any less capable, perhaps the opposite even. Has anyone any concrete clues why that option wasn't pursued?
 
It is hard to know without having the specifications and requirements. I would guess cost was probably the issue only because it seems all of the necessary basic performance would be there.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Any droppable payload needs to be internal to be competitive in the modern arena.
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The Air Force did not specify internal bays for the CCA increment for which Andurl was chosen to advance into prototyping and flight testing. Had they done so, Andurl would have spent its pre-selection contracted time refining a design that did have them and that's what it would have flown. Simply put, there are quite a few missions where external weapons or internal + external sensors would work just fine. In fact it may be advantageous given the lower cost due to simplicity etc.
 
VLO clearly was not a requirement. I would think that a small CCA with a pair of weapons on low profile pylons likely still has a smaller RCS than any 4th gen fighter. And if the CCA is intended to act as a decoy or jammer, then stealth is not the point anyway. My impression is that instead of stealth, the USAF is looking for the unmanned segments of NGAD to present the largest possible number of targets to the enemy.
 
Wouldn’t it be more sensible to design something as stealthy as possible but also capable to get more radar noticeable when and where needed?
 
EmoBirb said:
I have to admit though, I cannot quite grasp why for the first increment Boeing's MQ-28 Ghost Bat wasn't picked
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100% this had been floating in the back of mind for awhile as well. While it has been said that it can do air to air, as far as I can tell though, the ghost bat doesnt seem to have any internal carriage space for missiles, seems to be only an offboard sensing node and isnt noticeably faster than either YFQ-42 or 44.

So without that, even if it is stealthier its probably not a good tradeoff compared to YFQ-42. The only NATO CCA/UCAV thats probably most fitting as a full sized autonomous wingman is the Turkish Kizilelma and we all know thats probably not gonna happen...

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had said:
Wouldn’t it be more sensible to design something as stealthy as possible but also capable to get more radar noticeable when and where needed?
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I think that competes with platform cost requirements. VLO construction in non trivial.
 
Josh_TN said:
I think that competes with platform cost requirements. VLO construction in non trivial.
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Stealth through shaping shouldnt be too heavy of a lift though? The MQ-28A apparently didnt have any RAM and its still "somewhat low cost"

Having internal bays, stealth, complete radar + EO sensors and a higher thrust engine really would be a separate cost class, but only being stealthier isnt worth the added cost either.

LM's vectis design seems to be the top end of this size of CCA. Any more and you might as well go with an unmanned fighter.
 
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Boeing had a bid for CCA and lost. We don’t know what the Boeing bid looked like or if it has any similarity to MQ-28. All we know is that they didn’t get picked.

MQ-28 was also an AU lead development so there could be sovereignty issues that needs to be resolved to bring it back to the US and an US program; if nothing else it could have complicated the bid.
 
ncc81701 said:
MQ-28 was also an AU lead development so there could be sovereignty issues that needs to be resolved to bring it back to the US and an US program; if nothing else it could have complicated the bid.
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There is nothing special on the MQ-28 that would warrant it be brought back to serve a US program even if the requirements were perfectly aligned. Mission autonomy and sensor integration is all being handled seperately and the digital design tools Boeing used to develop MQ-28 are available to it across its portfolio of programs.
 
YFQ-44 Blue Force target drone lineage makes it carrying any sort of weapons kinda tall order. Anduril kinda turned as a company that over promises and under delivers and turned to buying up companies and projects like its legacy competitors.
 
Scott Bledsoe and Joe Murray join Mike to talk about Fury’s very beginning—way back to 2016.Now known as Anduril’s YFQ-44 and in testing with the Air Force, the Fury unmanned fighter jet originated as an SBIR project from Blue Force Technologies and may go on to become a poster child of SBIR success stories. But it’s not all good news.The experience—and the decision to sell to Anduril—motivated Scott and Joe to start a new type of investment fund called the DoD Accelerator. DoD Accelerator bridges the gap between venture capital and private equity, addressing the ‘funding valley of death’ they faced and the factors that led to the decision to sell their company—and Fury—to Anduril.This is packed with never-before-revealed details and serves as the backdrop for a broader conversation about the realities of having a company in the defense industry and working with the U.S. military
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View: https://youtu.be/lxbXhUuu7SU
 
The aircraft in the foreground looks to be hosting an impressive array of dorsal phased array antennas.
 
Earlier there were some questions in this thread about aircraft's size. I took some time to analyze a bunch of photos and screencaps on offer here and I can very confidently say the YFQ-44A is over 9 meters long. Most of the measurements put it between 9 and 10 meters in length. This image, I hope is enough. 445.png
The L-29 chase plane is a known quantity and from other imagery we know that it was flying to the left of the drone in this image. So it's closer to the camera than the drone. Telephoto lens should keep the size distortion to be fairly small, but even so, drone's size should be bigger than shown. What is shown is absolutely lowest possible length (without taking into account lens shenanigans) And given the other images I looked at, i'm quite certain length is over 9 m, possibly even over 9.5 m.
 
Great image with AIM-120. Now an exact measurement can be made. The drone appears 10 meters long. Almost to a centimetre. (1-3 cm over) And some shots from the video help with the wingspan, which appears roughly 6.5 m wide, though there should be a few tens of centimetres wide margin of error there.
 
Specifications

Length 10.4 m
Wingspan 6.95 m
Height 3.235 m
Wing area 12.16 m2

Weight:
Maximum 6000 kg (2 x 450 kg bombs)
Normal 5400 kg (2 x AIM-120D)
Fuel 2000 kg
Empty 3000 kg

Speed:
Maximum speed: 915 km/h
Cruising speed: 650 km/h

The driving range is 2500 km
Range of action:
air–to-air 866 km
air – ground 1176 km

flight time: 4 hours

the AG column
 

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