Anduril at Arsenal-1: A sparse factory floor, a fast ramp, and the people building Fury

In Pickaway County, Ohio, the first thing you notice at Anduril’s Arsenal-1 is what isn’t there: no dense thicket of machines, no rows of robots, no elaborate production spectacle. Late last week, on a largely open factory floor, workstations stood ready as the company began production of its YFQ-44A “Fury” Collaborative Combat Aircraft drone—an effort Anduril says is built around speed, flexibility, and a workforce that can scale with demand.

What is Anduril producing at Arsenal-1—and why does it matter now?

Anduril Industries said March 23 that it has begun production of the YFQ-44A “Fury” Collaborative Combat Aircraft at its Arsenal-1 plant in Pickaway County. The aircraft is tied to the U. S. Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program, where Anduril is competing for the first increment alongside General Atomics’ YFQ-42A.

The Air Force has not yet said how many Collaborative Combat Aircraft it plans to buy. That uncertainty hangs over the factory tour like the quiet between power tools: the building is ready, the workstations are in place, and the company is positioning the site to respond quickly if a production contract arrives.

In a facility located amid farmland and fields about 20 miles outside Columbus, the exterior activity contrasted with the interior calm. Heavy machinery surrounded the site as the company built out additional factory space. The tour took place just before production began, and the message from the company was consistent: the pace matters as much as the product.

How does the “barebones” approach shape production on the floor at Arsenal-1?

Keith Flynn, senior vice president of production at Anduril, described the plant’s minimal look as deliberate. “Explicitly the intent, ” Flynn said of the sparse layout. “We need to deploy capacity as fast as we possibly can. ”

For a company known for building weapons that can operate autonomously, the Arsenal-1 approach is strikingly hands-on. Flynn told reporters they would not see complex equipment or a “bunch of robotics. ” The underlying question, he said, was how to ramp production as quickly as possible—and then look for opportunities after the ramp is achieved.

The factory itself is a large, hangar-like building with roughly 22 workstations for Fury production. During the tour, it was largely empty aside from those stations and a few cubicles in the center. The emptiness reads less like absence than intention: a production system designed to expand, shift, and accelerate.

The work moves in a defined sequence. The first four stations focus on the aircraft’s structure. Subsequent stations handle the aircraft’s inner workings—hydraulic systems, fuel lines, and avionics. Around the midpoint, landing gear is installed, followed by the wings and the engine. The later stations are reserved for final steps in the build.

What production targets and hiring plans are on the table?

Anduril says its initial goal is to produce about 50 aircraft per year. The longer-term hope is to expand capacity to 150 aircraft by adding shifts as the company hires more workers. Company officials also acknowledged a key constraint: it has not received orders for that many aircraft.

Executives said they expect the first aircraft to roll off the production line this summer (ET). The company declined to say how many Fury jets are currently under contract under a development contract with the Air Force, and it did not say how many have been produced so far.

The expansion plan is as much about people as it is about square footage. The company expects to employ 250 people at Arsenal-1 by the end of the year, with 4, 000 people hired over the next decade. Those numbers, presented alongside a factory that is still being built out, signal a bet on sustained work—not just a single production run.

The site’s location also supports the broader manufacturing and testing picture. Arsenal-1 sits near Rickenbacker International Airport, where the company says it is building a hangar for ground testing. Outside, construction activity continued as the company developed additional space around the plant.

In the middle of the hangar-like interior, the cubicles and workstations hint at the human rhythm that will fill the open floor: technicians moving from station to station, teams coordinating parts and assemblies, and supervisors tracking progress against targets that are ambitious but still dependent on what the Air Force ultimately decides to buy.

For now, Anduril’s wager is visible in the architecture of the place. A factory that looks “barebones, ” as Flynn framed it, is being presented as the quickest path to capacity. Whether that capacity is tested soon depends on decisions outside the building—and on a CCA program whose final scale remains unspecified.

Back in the farmland of Pickaway County, the contrast is the story: a quiet interior built for speed, and an active perimeter still under construction. Anduril has started production of Fury at Arsenal-1, but the next chapters—how fast the line moves, how many workers arrive, and how much the Air Force chooses to buy—remain open on the same sparse floor.

Image caption (alt text): Anduril Arsenal-1 workstations prepared for YFQ-44A Fury Collaborative Combat Aircraft production in Pickaway County, Ohio.