Anduril Industries reposted this
When I left SASC to join Anduril over 6 years ago, I admittedly didn’t know what I was doing, or what I would be doing. I just knew that I needed to find a new avenue to help our military achieve the initiatives that I was advocating in Congress – modernize faster, innovate, prepare for the adversarial challenges that posed an existential threat to our country. Never would I imagine a day like today. Anxiously bouncing beside a runway squinting at blue sky and listening intently to a scratchy radio. It will be one of the most remarkable memories of my life. When, YFQ-44A touched down for a landing (so smooth by the way) it was a shared relief, pride, and immense sense of achievement for all of us there. The accomplishments on this program to date are many. The U.S. AF CCA program is a technical leap for aviation, employing a novel and aggressive program structure, that selected a young non-traditional defense company specializing in software to build an airplane. For any one of these reasons, a successful first flight today would be a big deal. But doing this with the people at Anduril and the U.S. Air Force is what will make it a truly remarkable moment. A shared belief, a shared mission, a shared commitment, who like me, were pacing nervously and trying not to ugly cry. I could not be more grateful to be part of making history with such a great team. And what’s crazy, we still have so much left to go. We have begun integrating weapons with YFQ-44A and will execute our first live shot next year. We will execute multi-ship mission autonomy flights and fly with crewed fighters. We currently have multiple fully built aircraft in testing, as well as multiple aircraft in various stages of the manufacturing process, and standing up an operational manufacturing site in Columbus. Onward and upward. FBC.