{"id":7513,"date":"2026-03-19T06:40:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T06:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/anduril-new-factory-will-start-making-drone-wingman-in-just-days\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T06:40:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T06:40:30","slug":"anduril-new-factory-will-start-making-drone-wingman-in-just-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/anduril-new-factory-will-start-making-drone-wingman-in-just-days\/","title":{"rendered":"Anduril: new factory will start making drone wingman in just \u2018days\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Anduril will soon start making its robot drone wingman offering for the Air Force at its new Ohio factory months ahead of schedule, a company official told Defense One <\/em>in an exclusive interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The private defense contractor announced last year that it would build its manufacturing facility, dubbed Arsenal-1, in Columbus, Ohio, and \u201cthe first products will be manufactured beginning in July 2026.\u201d But Jason Levin, the company\u2019s senior vice president of engineering for air dominance & strike, said on Wednesday that production was imminent. The first product made at the facility will be the YFQ-44A Fury, the drone that the company is pitching in the Air Force\u2019s collaborative combat aircraft competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re moving production of YFQ-44 into our Arsenal facility in Columbus, Ohio, in a matter of days, actually, we’re gonna start production there,\u201d Levin said in a soon-to-be released Defense One <\/em>video series. \u201cWe’ll be able to produce YFQ-44s at rate, but also many other Anduril products as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anduril\u2019s investment in the American heartland comes amid the Trump’s administration push to have defense companies invest in domestic manufacturing. Levin said the facility is \u201c5 million square feet\u201d; last year, the company boasted of Arsenal-1\u2019s location next to a local airport providing access to two 12,000-foot runways and a 75-acre private apron \u201ccapable of supporting military-scale aircraft, ensuring rapid delivery of components and systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

A company spokesperson did not immediately provide the date when Fury production would start at the Ohio facility. Anduril, General Atomics, and Northrop Grumman are all in the running to build the Air Force\u2019s first collaborative combat aircraft.<\/p>\n

When first established, the CCA concept was defined by affordability and attritability. Levin said Anduril has been keeping costs low on its drone wingman offering leaning on a broad commercial supply chain for the aircraft\u2019s key components such as the engine, avionics, and landing gear.<\/p>\n

“We can go out to multiple vendors. That actually gives some price leverage as well, but also allows us to scale if the demand were to come,\u201d Levin said. \u201cSo, if we need to build hundreds, multiple, of these aircraft, we can get that done by going out to a broader supply base, not just kind of bottlenecked by one or two vendors.”<\/p>\n

Last month, Anduril started armed flight testing with its CCA offering. It closely followed an Air Force announcement that the service validated its government-owned Autonomy Government Reference Architecture to integrate RTX Collins software aboard General Atomics\u2019 YFQ-42 CCA aircraft and Shield AI\u2019s technology on Anduril’s YFQ-44 CCA.<\/p>\n

Anduril, in another milestone, announced late last month it had completed its first semi-autonomous flight and was able to switch between Shield AI and its own mission autonomy software suites mid-air.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Air Force has said a competitive Increment 1 production decision is expected in fiscal year 2026.\n\n<\/svg><\/p>\n<\/div>\n