MANY MINDEDAn Air Force wingman drone fires a live missile for the first time
The US Air Force has fired a missile from a Collaborative Combat Aircraft Loyal Wingman drone for the first time in the country. Announced by Anduril Industries on July 15, 2026, the test used the company's YFQ-44A drone, which launched a live AIM-120 medium-range air-to-air missile at a simulated target in closed airspace over the Mojave Desert, flown out of Edwards Air Force Base with the 412th Test Wing's Air Dominance Combined Test Force.
The drone located, acquired, and closed with the target autonomously, using Anduril's Lattice software to seek, lock on, and compute an intercept course. A human ground supervisor gave the actual fire command, in line with US combat protocol, which forbids autonomous weapon release.
The abundance angle here is inverted: cheaper uncrewed airpower makes lethal force more available and less costly to field, which gates rather than expands human flourishing. Autonomous combat aircraft lower the price of projecting force, and that shift concentrates capability in whoever can build and deploy them. The human-in-the-loop requirement is the current guardrail, and its durability is the thing to watch.
The caveats are important. The target was digital, not a physical object, so this demonstrates the fire chain rather than a full intercept. Human authorization remained mandatory for release. Watch whether that authorization threshold holds as these systems scale and how procurement decisions treat the autonomy boundary.
Source: New Atlas