
AI-generated summary
The U.S. Air Force is expanding its drone fleet to meet combat needs in high-threat environments and gradually replacing its old MQ-9 drones.
Anduril's FQ-44 drone passed a series of tests. (Taken from the U.S. Air Force website)
[Reporter Tu Jumin/Comprehensive Report] The U.S. Air Force has significantly expanded its drone fleet. The foreign military news website "The War Zone" reported that U.S. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink Meink said that the U.S. military plans to deploy at least 500 "Cooperative Combat Aircraft" (CCA) by 2032 and acquire another 500 "Mass Modular Aircraft" (MMA). The latter will gradually replace the MQ-9 UAV, which means that the U.S. Air Force will move towards the goal of acquiring 1,000 new-generation advanced UAVs in the next six years.
Meink recently attended the 2026 "Air, Space and Network Conference" and stated that the U.S. Air Force expects to have at least 500 CCA aircraft in service by 2032, a significant increase from the goal of "procuring more than 150 aircraft by 2030" announced in June this year. The first batch of General Atomics FQ-42 and Anduril FQ-44 have now entered the production line. The two models have also received the names of "Vengeance" and "Fury" respectively. In the future, they will perform some of the missions of manned fighters.
The U.S. Air Force has previously assessed that the unit price of CCA will be approximately US$20 million (approximately NT$636 million) after full-scale mass production. The design focuses on simple structure, rapid mass production and cost reduction. It also uses manned fighters and unmanned wingmen to cooperate with each other to rapidly expand the size of its forces in high-threat environments. The US military is still continuing to test the deployment, take-off and landing, recovery and tactical application modes of CCA.
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In addition to CCA, the US Air Force will also develop MMA with a unit price of approximately US$10 million (approximately NT$318 million). It plans to deploy 100 aircraft in 2029 and increase to 500 in 2032 to perform long-range strike and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, gradually replacing the MQ-9. The U.S. Air Force pointed out that in recent years, MQ-9 has suffered battle damage in high-threat environments, and the fleet has continued to be eliminated, prompting the U.S. military to seek new drones that are lower cost, can withstand battle damage, and can be deployed in large quantities.
Meinke said that in the future, the US military will expand its unmanned combat capabilities through CCA and MMA, and use a large number of low-cost unmanned vehicles to enhance its strike and sustained combat capabilities when there may be high-intensity conflicts with potential opponents such as China.
AI outlook — possibilities, not facts
The U.S. Air Force will achieve the deployment goal of at least 500 CCA and 500 MMA by 2032
Likely · Within years
MMA will gradually replace the MQ-9 UAV as the main medium-altitude and long-end UAV of the US military.
Likely · Within years

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