Anduril opens $1B drone plant
Anduril has begun production of its Fury high‑speed 'loyal wingman' combat drones at a new $1 billion Ohio facility called 'Arsenal One'—the drones are designed to fly alongside fighter jets and scale cheap, mass‑produced autonomy for combat roles. The move leans on recent battlefield lessons that inexpensive, autonomous drones can outperform costly missiles and marks a major industrial ramp for a commercial defense startup. (x.com)
Anduril describes Arsenal‑1 as a hyperscale campus that can accommodate more than 5 million square feet and represents an initial capital rebuild of over $900 million. (anduril.com) The company projects the site will create more than 4,000 direct jobs and produce roughly $2 billion in annual economic output when fully operational. (anduril.com) Arsenal‑1 sits in Pickaway County adjacent to Rickenbacker International Airport, giving the facility direct access to air cargo, rail and highway links and positioned about 85 miles from Wright‑Patterson Air Force Base. (airandspaceforces.com) Anduril’s YFQ‑44A “Fury” completed its first semi‑autonomous flight on October 31, 2025 as one of the two prototype entries in the U.S. Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft Increment 1 competition. (airandspaceforces.com) The company says Fury is built around its Lattice autonomy stack and that the YFQ‑44A moved from clean‑sheet design to flight in 556 days, a cadence Anduril highlights as evidence of rapid development tempo. (anduril.com) Anduril has pitched Arsenal‑1 as a “hyperscale” manufacturing approach that could produce thousands of autonomous systems annually at full scale, and reporting from Bloomberg says initial Fury fighters will be assembled largely by hand with production lines opening within about a year. (industryweek.com)
