General Atomics has tapped Spirit Defense, a subsidiary of Boeing, to help produce FQ-42A Vengeance Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drones. This follows the U.S. Air Force’s announcement last month that it wants to have at least 500 CCAs in inventory by 2032. Years ago, TWZ highlighted the likelihood that industrial partnerships like this would be required to meet the service’s aggressive volume and schedule goals for the CCA program.

General Atomics’ Aeronautical Systems, Inc. division (GA-ASI) announced the team-up with Spirit on FQ-42 production earlier today. The Vengenace is one of two designs the Air Force has ordered into production under the first phase, or Increment 1, of its CCA program. The other is Anduril’s FQ-44A Fury. The 500-drone target the Air Force has laid out covers a mixed fleet of both FQ-42s and FQ-44s. The service is still planning to acquire additional CCAs, potentially with completely different designs, through a follow-on Increment 2.

When it comes to FQ-42 production, “Spirit Defense’s role as a fuselage design-build partner brings together the company’s engineering and advanced manufacturing capabilities to support the program from design through production,” according to a GA-ASI release. “Partnering with Spirit Defense is a strength multiplier for the company and the nation, offering manufacturing capacity and industrial depth to scale CCA production faster, while strengthening production resilience, and reducing the risk of single points of failure.”

“We’re excited to be working with Spirit Defense,” David R. Alexander, GA-ASI’s President, said in an accompanying statement. “We’ve established our proven design, development, and manufacturing capability for the FQ-42. With Spirit Defense, we add capacity, which is exactly the kind of production resilience our U.S. Air Force customer is looking for with its CCA ramp-up. This kind of partnership represents the scalable industrial base the Air Force and the U.S. Department of War are looking for from industry.”

“The intent for them [the Air Force] is to go up to as many as 500 aircraft by 2032,” Mike Shortsleeve, Vice President for Strategy Business Development at GA-ASI, also told TWZ’s Jamie Hunter on the floor of the Air & Space Forces Association’s (AFA) 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference in September. “We’re ready to do that production.”

At the conference, Shortsleeve highlighted investments in additive manufacturing and advanced robotics, along with efforts to build out the company’s skilled workforce, to help meet those production demands.

General Atomics is already an established drone maker with significant serial airframe production experience of its own. At the same time, the company is seeing growing demand for its MQ-9B series of drones, including a sale to the U.S. Coast Guard announced earlier this month. The MQ-9B design builds on the highly successful MQ-9A Reaper. It is also pursuing a host of other opportunities in the U.S. and abroad that could add production demands.

Mike Atwood, GA-ASI’s Vice President of Advanced Aircraft Programs, notably acknowledged potential hurdles for meeting CCA production demands, specifically, in the past.

“We have basically a hot production line where I can take an MQ-9 out and put a Collaborative Combat Aircraft in,” Atwood said on an edition of The Merge podcast back in 2024. “We were able to essentially take Reaper parts out of stock rooms and build the first [CCA] aircraft.”

“Composites are inherently expensive … they’re really for high-performance applications where you need certain strength and stiffness,” he also noted at that time. “When you look at Collaborative Combat Aircraft … we’re actually falling back on more metallic – what we call hybrid structures, metal frames with composite skins.”

The production of advanced composites and hybrid structures is Spirit’s main business. The company also has a well-established history of working as a subcontractor on military aerospace projects, including in support of bleed-edge programs like the B-21 Raider bomber.

It is also important to note here that, before its founding as an independent company in 2005, Spirit was actually a division of Boeing. By the early 2020s, Spirit had been suffering from significant financial losses and quality control lapses. Boeing subsequently decided to reacquire it in a multi-billion-dollar deal. The acquisition process began in 2024 and was finalized last year. Since then, Boeing has faced continued challenges in getting the firm back on track.

In 2024, when General Atomics and Anduril were selected to move ahead in the Increment 1 phase of the Air Force’s CCA program, TWZ explicitly raised the prospect of both companies bringing in help, especially to meet future production demands. At the time, the focus was more on Anduril, which was not a major airframer at the time and had yet to establish significant production facilities of its own for Fury. It was also unclear then whether the Air Force might pick a single winning Increment 1 drone rather than go the route it ultimately chose of ordering batches of both designs.

However, as we wrote at the time: “No matter who is selected in the end as the prime contractor, a large pool of manufacturer partners will likely be key to meeting the Air Force’s production volume and schedule goals.”

As an aside, Boeing is already in the CCA business itself, with the MQ-28 Ghost Bat developed originally through a separate subsidary in Australia. The company has been working to expand its own production capacity to build those drones in recent years.

Generally speaking, the ability of defense contractors to rapidly scale production to meet U.S. military demands, and do so affordably, is steadily becoming a more common point of discussion across all major acquisition programs. Being able to acquire and field CCAs in relatively large volumes and at a price that makes sense is absolutely central to the whole concept being these drones.

“The nuance here that probably is overlooked, is the fact that they’re [the Air Force] recognizing with 500 that they require, the factory floor is now becoming part of the battle space,” General Atomics’ Shortsleeve had told TWZ at the AFA conference last month. “So the ability for companies to be able to manufacture and produce those aircraft in numbers that are needed for the fight rapidly is going to be a key part to going forward in the future.”

The Air Force is otherwise still very much laying the rest of the groundwork for fielding its future CCAs operationally toward the end of the decade. A full playbook for deploying, launching, recovering, supporting, and otherwise operating CCA-type drones on a day-to-day basis, let alone employing them tactically, still has yet to be written. Answering these questions will be important for other CCA programs across the U.S. military and elsewhere globally.

General Atomics’ new partnership with Spirit Defense underscores how production of Increment 1 CCAs is ramping up already in reponse to the Air Force’s current CCA program goals.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The post General Atomics FQ-42 CCA Drone Production Ramp Up To Be Boosted By Boeing Subsidiary appeared first on TWZ.

• A NATO drone maker is partnering with a Ukrainian firm to manufacture drone parts underground.
• ORQA says the partnership offers lessons in keeping factories running during wartime.
• Western companies often overlook Ukraine's experience in manufacturing under attack, it says.

A NATO drone maker is teaming up with Ukraine's defense industry and building drone parts underground. The company's CEO said it's seeking to learn lessons in wartime production that could prove critical for Western defense companies in a crisis.

Croatian drone technology company ORQA and Ukrainian drone maker General Cherry are jointly developing and manufacturing interceptor drones, components, and other counter-drone systems in both countries. As part of the partnership, they are building an underground factory in Ukraine to make components.

Working amid Ukraine's wartime risks teaches the company valuable lessons in manufacturing while under attack, ORQA CEO Srđan Kovačević told Business Insider. Producing components in Ukraine is also more efficient than making them in NATO and shipping them to the Ukrainian military, he said.

Kovačević said his company is "learning from Ukraine," where industry is "under constant threat."

"They were also compelled to go underground, to go wide, to de-risk their assets in distribution," he said. "So I think that's the way forward for any critical capabilities."

Ukrainian defense firms are splitting their manufacturing across multiple sites, frequently relocating, and moving some work underground to avoid being targeted by Russian attacks. It's less efficient, but more resilient to attacks. Some Western officials and companies warn that it's time for European industry to learn these practices amid concerns about Russian aggression.

"Distributed systems are much more resilient to any disruption than concentrated systems, centralized systems," Kovačević said. "It's simply about not having a single point of failure."

Ukraine has "this immensely valuable lived experience of building and scaling under fire," the ORQA CEO said, "that's being often abstracted and neglected by Western companies." That, however, is starting to change, he said.

"I think the thinking is really shifting on the European side as well, that this distributed nature actually reinforces resilience even though there are economic downsides to it."

Raivis Melnis, the defense minister of Latvia, told Business Insider that NATO companies work in a far more concentrated way than Ukrainian ones do, and "the question is whether we are ready to produce the systems in different locations, dispersed, and how we organize that."

He wants Latvian and Ukrainian defense industries to work together in part so they can learn how Ukrainian companies maintain production during a war.

Davyd Aloian, the deputy secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, told Business Insider earlier this year that defense companies within parts of NATO should "definitely" start breaking up their production more.

Some defense industry figures have voiced similar concerns about the state of production in the West. Karmo Saar, the head of sales for Estonian drone maker Krattworks, told Business Insider that in a war with Russia, if European companies don't disperse more, "I think we're going to be punished."

Dispersing production is not without trade-offs, though. Achi, CEO of the Ukrainian-Estonian defense technology company and ground robot maker Ark Robotics, told Business Insider that such defensive steps are "necessary," but "not ideal." Operations would be easier with everything in one place.

Choosing Ukraine despite the danger

Some Ukrainian companies have begun setting up production in NATO countries, both to better share their expertise with partner nations and to operate without the risk of Russian attacks.

But Kovačević, whose company makes drones as well as drone technology, including controllers, receivers, goggles, video equipment, and flight simulators, said that building in Ukraine comes with upsides.

The company, which supplies 24 NATO allies, could have done all of its work with General Cherry in Croatia, but instead, they are spreading their joint work across both countries.

Kovačević said building components in Europe and then importing them into Ukraine is "more inefficient than actually doing it in Ukraine." It's also more expensive, and Ukraine has shown its ability to produce in large volumes.

Localizing the supply chain also means that all parties can "exchange information more efficiently," including about what's happening and what's needed on the battlefield.

He said he understands why some Ukrainian companies are building gear on NATO soil, but he sees value in partnering with General Cherry in Ukraine. He said the Ukrainian company, one of the country's largest drone makers, has "a high operational excellence in running their own manufacturing operations in a safe manner, even under constant threat."

The partnership also offers lessons beyond manufacturing. He said that while the West "has a very deep technology expertise," it lacks "this lived experience of taking that technology and applying it to the operational reality of the 21st-century warfare."

The goal is to both supply Ukraine and to equip NATO with weapons shaped by Ukraine's battlefield experience and expertise. In Croatia, the partners are establishing a joint serial-production facility for co-developed interceptor drones and other counter-drone systems destined for NATO, while in Ukraine, they intend to create drone components, including electronics and communications systems, which General Cherry says it will supply to "all our partners in Ukraine," not just use itself.

Ukraine is already able to make the drones that the partnership will produce in Croatia, but "what they lack is the capacity to build components that go into those systems," Kovačević said, explaining the focus of the Ukrainian facility. He said the project won't disrupt Ukraine's existing supply chains. One of ORQA's priorities is to reduce reliance on Chinese products, and it wants to help Ukraine's industry do the same.

"Now," he said, "it's time to merge the two and emerge better off on both sides of this partnership."

A series of drone attacks on commercial shipping near Romania and Bulgaria has left sailors dead or missing, bringing Russia’s war against Ukraine closer to NATO territory. The European Parliament is calling for an EU naval mission, while Romania has begun shooting down hostile drones and NATO is preparing additional defensive measures.

The European Parliament has called for the possible deployment of an EU naval operation in the Black Sea following a series of deadly attacks on civilian merchant vessels near the Romanian and Bulgarian coasts. The resolution, adopted on 22 October 2026 by 432 votes to 52, with 88 abstentions, reflects mounting concern over the expansion of maritime threats towards NATO’s south-eastern flank.

The parliamentary resolution urges EU member states to consider establishing a naval mission to protect commercial shipping, while calling on NATO to examine a complementary regional initiative, provisionally described as Black Sea Sentry.

On 23 October, a drone struck the Comoros-flagged cargo vessel Khoryv, approximately 13 nautical miles from Romania’s port of Constanța. The vessel caught fire and sank, leaving one sailor confirmed dead and three missing. Nine crew members were rescued. The ship was carrying 13 Ukrainian and Azerbaijani sailors. According to information attributed to Romanian maritime authorities, difficult weather complicated rescue efforts.

Romanian President Nicușor Dan blamed Russia for the attack, which followed at least seven other strikes on commercial vessels during October. Across the incidents, approximately 30 sailors have been reported dead or missing, although the confirmed death toll is considerably lower.

Civilian Shipping Under Attack

The escalation began on 5 October when the Royad Mammadov, a Turkish-owned grain carrier sailing under the flag of Saint Kitts and Nevis, sank in Romania’s exclusive economic zone. Two sailors died and eleven were rescued. The vessel had departed the Ukrainian Danube port of Izmail carrying corn destined for Ravenna, Italy. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attributed the sinking to Russian drones, although Romanian authorities did not initially establish responsibility.

The following day, two merchant ships were attacked approximately 70 nautical miles east of the Bulgarian coastal town of Byala. As EU Today reported, the Togo-flagged Alfa Watan sank after sustaining severe damage, while the Palau-flagged Able caught fire. All 18 sailors aboard the latter vessel were rescued, but the crew of the Alfa Watan remained unaccounted for.

The Bulgarian authorities confirmed that both aerial and maritime drones had been involved. Further attacks followed on 13 October, when the HS Dignity sank near Shabla, leaving eleven sailors missing, while the Chelsea-3 was struck near Byala. All 15 crew members of the latter vessel were evacuated.

Two chemical tankers, the Yara J and Wine Trader, were subsequently attacked near the Sulina Canal, a strategically important route connecting the Danube with the Black Sea. The incidents exposed the vulnerability of shipping corridors connecting Ukraine with international markets.

Romania Moves Towards Active Military Defence

Romania has responded by strengthening surveillance and authorising direct military action against drones entering its airspace. On 17 October, two Romanian F-16 fighter aircraft intercepted and destroyed hostile drones over Romanian territorial waters.

According to the Romanian Ministry of National Defence, the aircraft were scrambled from Borcea Air Base after radar systems detected aerial targets approaching from the direction of Snake Island. The drones, identified as jet-powered Geran-family attack aircraft, entered Romanian airspace before being destroyed southeast and east of Sulina.

The ministry disclosed that, during the preceding week, its radar systems had detected eight separate incidents involving aerial targets near the Romanian border, including four brief incursions into national airspace. On 14 October, Spanish F-18 aircraft operating under NATO air-policing arrangements were scrambled after drones approached Romanian airspace.

Bulgaria’s More Cautious Response

Bulgaria has taken a more reserved position concerning responsibility for the attacks. Although Prime Minister Rumen Radev acknowledged their seriousness, his government maintained that investigations must establish the origin of the drones before definitive conclusions could be drawn. Sofia nevertheless strengthened maritime surveillance, deployed rescue resources and requested assistance from European and NATO partners.

In August, a drone crossed into Bulgarian airspace from Romania and exploded near infrastructure associated with the Trans-Balkan Gas Pipeline. According to the Bulgarian government’s account, the aircraft was not detected by either national radar systems or NATO’s Combined Air Operations Centre in Torrejón, Spain. The European Parliament has now urged Sofia to accelerate participation in NATO’s counter-drone initiatives.

EU Proposes Maritime Security Operation

The European Parliament’s proposals include establishing an EU naval operation, improving early detection of hostile drones, accelerating the development of a Black Sea Maritime Security Hub and providing additional defence funding to Romania and Bulgaria. MEPs have proposed using resources under the EU’s SAFE defence financing instrument to support regional capabilities.

The proposed hub would facilitate intelligence-sharing, maritime surveillance and protection of critical infrastructure. Romania and Bulgaria have requested EU satellite imagery to improve their awareness of maritime threats, while the European Maritime Safety Agency has offered additional support.

At their October summit, EU leaders condemned attacks on civilian shipping and called for safe passage for vessels transporting agricultural products. The European Council’s conclusions addressed Black Sea and Danube shipping routes. However, the parliamentary resolution does not authorise a naval deployment: such an operation would require agreement among EU governments on its mandate, resources and rules of engagement.

NATO Faces an Expanding Security Challenge

NATO has responded by examining additional maritime surveillance and defensive measures, including patrol aircraft, radar systems and unmanned platforms. Romania has proposed stronger regional command arrangements involving NATO’s Black Sea members.

An existing framework provides a basis for cooperation. In July, Romania, Bulgaria and Türkiye agreed to expand the responsibilities of their joint mine countermeasures task group to include protection of critical underwater infrastructure. The agreement announced by Romania’s Defence Ministry extended cooperation beyond detecting and neutralising drifting mines.

Protecting commercial vessels against aerial and maritime drones would require broader capabilities. NATO must also operate within the restrictions of the 1936 Montreux Convention, which regulates passage of warships through the Turkish Straits and limits deployments by non-Black Sea countries. Romania, Bulgaria and Türkiye would therefore play central roles in any sustained maritime security operation.

Black Sea Security and the Risk of Escalation

Ukraine’s maritime export corridors remain essential to agricultural shipments following repeated Russian strikes on ports and logistics infrastructure. Attacks on commercial vessels can increase insurance costs, discourage shipping companies and disrupt trade even when port facilities remain functional.

The sinking of merchant vessels near allied territory, combined with repeated drone incursions into Romanian airspace, increases the possibility of military confrontation arising from an individual incident. The legal and military circumstances differ depending on whether an attack occurs in territorial waters, an exclusive economic zone or international waters.

The European Parliament’s proposal raises questions extending beyond maritime patrols: how civilian shipping can be protected, what military responses are authorised and how responsibility for attacks will be established. The sinking of the Khoryv on 23 October illustrates how the western Black Sea has become an increasingly exposed part of Europe’s security frontier.