PARIS—Anduril and General Atomics unveiled full-scale mockups of their fighter drones to the international market this week, pitching customizable weapons and a chance for Europe to help build them.
U.S. Air Force officials helped both companies pitch the program to other countries, executives told Defense One at the Paris Air Show—even though the service has yet to field the drones itself.
“The U.S. Air Force has said: Let’s move out. Let’s make partners. Let’s do co-production. Let’s make it happen,” said Dave Alexander, president of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems. The U.S. government could approve export licenses very soon, the company added—in “weeks, not months.”
The first increment of the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program has been designed for air-to-air missions, but General Atomics and Anduril aim to take their platforms and customize them for European countries, saying the modularity of the drones makes it easy to swap out mission systems.
European nations have expressed interest in air-to-ground missions, executives say, a “fairly straightforward” switch where the companies would take out the air-to-air systems and put in air-to-ground weapons and sensors, and possibly systems developed by the other nations.
“Are there indigenous capabilities that certain host nations want to bring? Maybe they have very good software autonomy or AI, maybe they have very good mission systems or weapons that they want to integrate. So that’s [what] we’re kind of exploring with each one of the nations,” said Jason Levin, who runs Anduril’s air dominance and strike.
Anduril announced Wednesday at the show that it will partner with German defense giant Rheinmetall to co-develop and produce Fury and Barracuda drones—tapping into the company’s European industrial base to develop different variants of the company’s products. The announcement comes as Europe is working to build out its own industrial base, and to rearm quickly to prepare from potential Russian aggression.
“With the teaming arrangement with Rheinmetall, we can start exploring European variants, and so that might start from vehicles that are produced in the U.S. and exported to Germany, and then basically German-ize and missionize in Germany, all the way to working with Rheinmetall for rate production in Germany, and then for other host nations around Europe,” Levin said.
Anduril hasn’t decided whether it would build new production facilities in Europe or use existing Rheinmetall facilities. Rich Drake, general manager for Anduril UK, said it depends on how much demand there is and what level of in-country localization they want.
The company is also still figuring out exactly what work Rheinmetall would do on Fury. But Levin said Rheinmetall does “excellent composites work” for the F-35, which could be used for Fury airframes, and highlightted to the company’s munitions as well.
General Atomics’ CCA offering is also up for co-production, though Alexander didn’t disclose which parts of the drone fighter could be manufactured abroad, saying it would vary by country.
With their international debut, the two firms are now competing stateside and abroad for CCA orders.
Asked how General Atomics’ offering differs from Anduril’s, Alexander pointed to its internal weapons bay, modular sensors, and “incredible range,” as well as the company’s long-standing experience building drones.
Anduril, meanwhile, is encouraging countries to look at the capabilities of both aircraft and “explore for themselves” what fits their needs, then work with Anduril to adapt Fury, rather than pitch a specific kind of vehicle and use case, Levin said.
Back home, the U.S. Air Force plans to decide whether to build one or both of the companies’ drones after their first flight this summer. The service developed the program to provide “affordable mass” for its fleet, and initial estimates put the cost of CCAs at about a third of an F-35, around $25 to $30 million each.
But General Atomics pushed back on that cost estimate, stating that their offering will be “far less than $20 million” per aircraft. Air Force officials have recently signaled that they want to go even cheaper and less exquisite on the program. Anduril declined to comment on the cost figure.
