GA-ASI halts YFQ-42A flight tests after mishap with no date set for restart
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has paused flight testing of its YFQ-42A Dark Merlin drone after an April 7 mishap and has not set a date for flights to resume. The company said it is assessing the aircraft’s condition and investigating the root cause of the incident.
The YFQ-42A is one of several production-representative aircraft now in low-rate initial production for the U.S. Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program. General Atomics said the jets routinely fly at company-owned facilities as part of operational test and evaluation, but added that flight operations will restart only when appropriate. The pause lands at a sensitive point for the program, underscoring the limits of rapid-iteration development when only a small number of costly prototypes are available and a single accident can interrupt the test cycle.
The Air Force is pressing ahead with the mission autonomy phase of CCA. RTX’s Collins Aerospace is supplying software for the YFQ-42A, while Shield AI is providing software for Anduril Industries’ YFQ-44A Fury prototype. The work is being carried out under the service’s Autonomy Government Reference Architecture, designed to make it easier to insert new, vendor-agnostic software into major weapons systems. The Air Force is expected to choose either the YFQ-42A or the YFQ-44A for CCA Increment 1 this year. A third prototype, Northrop Grumman’s YFQ-48A Talon, has also received an Air Force designation and could compete for Increment 2, which is due to begin development this year.
The setback comes as the Air Force seeks to scale investment in the effort. For fiscal 2027, the service is requesting nearly $1.4 billion for CCA, up $546 million from the $873 million appropriated for fiscal 2026. That increase shows the program remains a top modernization priority even as early testing exposes technical and schedule risk. How quickly General Atomics can complete its investigation and return the YFQ-42A to flight could shape the pace of competition, software integration and fielding plans across the Air Force’s emerging fleet of autonomous combat aircraft.