The Air Force began captive carry evaluations in February, strapping inert munitions to Anduril’s prototype drone wingman. The weapons have not yet been fired, the service said in a statement, stressing that “a human retains authority over weapons-release decisions.”. 

Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, the Air Force chief of staff, showed an image during his keynote address at the Air and Space Forces Association’s conference Monday evening showing Anduril’s YFQ-44A carrying an AIM-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missile.

“In close partnership with the U.S. Air Force, we have begun a planned series of flight tests with YFQ-44A involving the captive carriage of inert training munitions,” an Anduril spokesperson told Defense One. “This marks a deliberate, responsible, and necessary step in the aircraft’s development.”

Last fall, Anduril officials told reporters that the company had started integrated weapons testing and planned to start live firing testing in 2026. General Atomics, Anduril, and Northrop Grumman are all in the running to build the Air Force’s first collaborative combat aircraft.

“We are following the same detailed approach used in every other aircraft developmental test program to validate structural performance, flight characteristics, and safe separation,” Wilsbach said in a statement. “This ensures the CCA can safely integrate inert weapons before future employment.”

Both Anduril and General Atomics’ prototypes have notched their first flights. Northrop is planning a first flight for its drone wingman this year. 

News of the weapons integration testing follows a service announcement this month that the Air Force had used the government-owned Autonomy Government Reference Architecture to integrate RTX Collins software aboard General Atomics’ YFQ-42 CCA aircraft and Shield AI’s technology on Anduril's YFQ-44 CCA. 

General Atomics said earlier this month that it had logged another semi-autonomous flight on its YFQ-42 drone wingman with RTX Collins’ autonomy software onboard. Anduril has not flown a semi-automous flight with Shield AI, but plans to “very soon,” a company spokesman said. 

C. Mark Brinkley, a General Atomics company spokesperson, said they had not started integrated weapons testing yet. 

“General Atomics has been integrating weapons for decades,” Brinkley told Defense One. “We’ve fired air-to-ground missiles, air-to-air missiles, bombs of various sizes, loitering munitions, and air-launched effects. Weapons from the wings and weapons from the internal bay. No one wonders if we can put steel on target.”

A competitive Increment 1 production decision is expected in fiscal year 2026, the Air Force has previously said.

“CCA is a critical part of a larger, integrated system-of-systems that will give our warfighters the overwhelming advantage," Wilsbach said in a news release. "This program is about delivering a network of effects that will sense, strike, and shield our forces in contested environments. We are empowering our teams to take smart risks and deliver this capability faster, ensuring we can deter, and if necessary, defeat any adversary."

Tucked into the $151 billion reconciliation legislation last summer was $4.5 billion to increase the number of next-generation bombers. While those funds can be spent over five years, the Defense Department plans to execute all of it by this October “if that can be done without sacrificing effectiveness,” according to a Pentagon planning document obtained by Defense One on Monday. It’s unclear how the military plans to use the money to accelerate production, and the document said details were classified.

“The B-21 is foundational to our long-range strike capability and to credible deterrence,” Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said in a Monday press release. “Accelerating production capacity now ensures we deliver operational capability to combatant commanders faster—strengthening our ability to outpace, deter, and, if necessary, defeat emerging threats. This is disciplined execution at the speed the security environment demands.”

Negotiations about spending the $4.5 billion in B-21-related funding were delayed by a government shutdown in October. Northrop CEO Kathy Warden said an agreement for increased production would help the company’s bottom line, but would also spend anywhere from $2 billion to $3 billion in facility investments to meet the Air Force’s needs. As of last year, the company has taken around a $2 billion hit trying to accelerate the program and cover material costs.

Monday, the company said it is committed to getting more of the bombers built.

“The strong performance of the B-21 program has our Northrop Grumman and Air Force team ready to accelerate production of this game-changing capability for our nation,” Warden said in a press release. “Northrop Grumman has invested more than $5 billion in digital engineering and manufacturing infrastructure, and we are ready to produce B-21 faster.”

Northrop was awarded the low-rate initial production contract for Lot Three and the advanced procurement funding for Lot Five late last year. The Air Force has previously planned to buy 100 B-21 bombers, but some officials have made the case for nearly 150 aircraft. The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies has made a push for 200 bombers to “reduce the risk of losing a conflict with China,” its policy report earlier this month detailed. 

Air Force officials said B-21 bombers were delivered on schedule last year and that the service remains “on track” to deliver the first aircraft in 2027 to Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, which will serve as the bomber’s first main operating base and formal training unit.