According to Sandboxx, an online site devoted to covering all things military, two experimental collaborative combat aircraft (CCA), have exited their experimental testing stage and are now entering low-rate production to be fielded with several US Navy and US Air Force squadrons. Formerly known as the YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A drones, they will each drop their “Y” prefix and “A” suffix and become the FQ-42 and FQ-44 respectively. Its not clear which combat squadrons they will be assigned to or the control aircraft they will fly alongside, so lots of speculation will certainly circulate as to their ultimate deployment and exact mission once they reach full operational status.
Both aircraft will likely be painted in a low-observable grey pattern and there’s a good chance each will carry the squadron insignia of their control aircraft as a means of differentiating them from one another. Its not clear how many CCAs will fly alongside each control aircraft, likely dependent upon the type of mission they are being charged with completing and risk associated with their use.