General Atomics FQ-42
By 2020, the U.S. Air Force had begun its CCA (Collaborative Combat Aircraft) program, as part of the larger NGAD (Next Generation Air Dominance) effort. A CCA, also sometimes dubbed as a "Loyal Wingman", was to be an unmanned aircraft, which could fly missions alongside manned combat aircraft, extending the sensor capabilities, munitions loadout, and reach of the fighter force. A CCA receives commands from humans in the loop, but can carry out the assigned missions with a high degree of autonomy. The CCA program is proceeding in steps called "Increments", and Increment 1 focuses on a CCA with primarily air-to-air tasks. Five companies submitted design proposals for Increment 1 - Anduril, Boeing, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. In April 2024, the Air Force announced a downselect to two competing designs, from General Atomics and Anduril. In March 2025, the designation YFQ-42A was allocated to the forthcoming prototypes of the General Atomics CCA. At the same time, Anduril's entry was designated FQ-44.
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| Image: General Atomics |
| Gambit Family |
The FQ-42 is based on General Atomics' Gambit concept, a family of UAV/UCAV designs, where a common "core" serves as the base of several outwardly quite different vehicles, each taylored to specific missions. This "common core" design has reportedly already been used when building the XQ-67A OBSS demonstrator UAV.
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| Photo: General Atomics |
| YFQ-42A (full-scale model) |
No details about the FQ-42's planned sensor and weapon options had been revealed at the time of this writing. In early 2025, the first flight of the YFQ-42A was expected to occur before the end of that year.
Designation Note: It is unknown, why the design number 42 was allocated. It is out of sequence in both the Q- and F-series.
Specifications
No details about the characteristics of the FQ-42 are available.
Main Sources
[1] General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. Website
[2] The War Zone, Joseph Trevithick:
'Fighter Drone'
Designations Officially Assigned To Collaborative Combat Aircraft By USAF, March 2025
[3] U.S. Air Force: Air Force designates two Mission Design Series
for collaborative combat aircraft, March 2025
Back to Directory of U.S. Military Rockets and Missiles, Appendix 2
Last Updated: 10 March 2025