Anduril’s new Long Beach campus isn’t just another defense tech buildout. Founder Palmer Luckey is framing the expansion around a bold operational vision: assembling autonomous fighter jets that can depart the factory and head straight to customers, potentially even into contested environments. The remark underscores how central uncrewed combat aircraft have become to Anduril’s strategy—and why Long Beach’s aerospace roots make it a compelling base.
The company plans a 1.18 million-square-foot presence spread across six buildings, blending offices with industrial R&D and production spaces. And while the project will bring a wave of engineering, manufacturing, and logistics hiring to the area, the signature storyline is clearly airborne.
Autonomous Fighter Jets Take Center Stage
Anduril has been steadily positioning itself as a top-tier autonomy and systems integrator for air combat. Its Fury aircraft—designed to fly without a pilot on board, guided by mission intent set by humans—completed a first test flight in California, signaling the company’s move from prototypes to operationally relevant platforms. The idea that future jets could roll out of a Long Beach factory and launch from nearby infrastructure is a striking escalation of that roadmap.
This aligns with the Pentagon’s push for uncrewed “loyal wingman” and collaborative combat aircraft that supplement manned fighters with speed, software-driven adaptability, and lower unit costs. The U.S. Air Force has publicly outlined plans to field large numbers of these systems, with leaders citing the need for scalable “affordable mass.” Analyses from organizations like the Mitchell Institute and the Congressional Research Service have noted that autonomous aircraft can be produced and iterated faster than traditional fighters, a critical advantage as peer adversaries accelerate their own unmanned fleets.
Why Long Beach Fits Anduril’s Flight Plan
Long Beach offers rare aerospace DNA. This is the city that built Douglas airliners and McDonnell Douglas military aircraft, culminating in Boeing’s C-17 program. Today, a new generation of companies has turned the area into “Space Beach,” with Rocket Lab and other advanced manufacturers anchoring a dense supplier base. For Anduril, that means talent pipelines across avionics, composites, propulsion, and quality engineering—plus proximity to ports and Southern California airports for global logistics.
Anduril’s headquarters in Costa Mesa and its large-scale manufacturing in the Midwest give it a bi-coastal footprint. The Long Beach site adds a West Coast production hub within a well-understood aerospace regulatory environment and a region accustomed to ground testing, flight operations, and rapid iteration. The firm’s core autonomy software, long matured across land, sea, and air systems, can be integrated and validated near the engineers who write and test it.
Jobs and Supply Chain Build-Out at the Long Beach Campus
The campus is slated to hire a mix of manufacturing operators, technicians, assembly specialists, and engineers across electrical, mechanical, software, and aerodynamics disciplines, alongside build-and-test and logistics roles. That blend mirrors modern defense programs where vertically integrated teams pull hardware and software under one roof to accelerate schedules.
Local economic groups have consistently found that aerospace and defense jobs rank among the region’s highest value roles, with average wages above most private sectors and strong multiplier effects through specialized suppliers. If Anduril’s plans reach scale, expect a knock-on impact for regional composites shops, machine houses, power electronics makers, and flight-test services—plus broader demand in industrial real estate and transportation.
Regulatory Reality And Factory-To-Flight Ops
Launching autonomous jets “from the factory” will require careful choreography with federal regulators and defense range authorities. The Federal Aviation Administration typically relies on experimental airworthiness certificates and designated test areas for novel aircraft, while the Department of Defense manages access to restricted airspace and range safety. Recent FAA and DoD guidance has begun to clarify how autonomy can be tested and certified, but each new aircraft and site demands its own approvals and safety cases.
Long Beach’s proximity to established test corridors and overwater flight areas could streamline early sorties. Even so, expect phased operations: ground integration, taxi and engine runs, envelope expansion flights, and iterative autonomy validations—all governed by test plans that satisfy both airworthiness and mission assurance. The claim is ambitious, but not out of step with how modern defense primes are collapsing the distance between factory floor, software lab, and runway.
The Bigger Defense Tech Picture Behind Autonomous Fighters
Anduril’s focus on autonomous fighters dovetails with a broader shift in defense procurement. The Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft effort has moved multiple vendors into competitive prototyping, seeking vehicles that can team with F-35s and other platforms while carrying sensors, electronic warfare payloads, or weapons. Industry estimates often place the per-unit cost of these systems in the low tens of millions—far below manned jets—making large fleets plausible within constrained budgets.
For Anduril, Long Beach is both a signal and a staging ground. The signal: autonomy isn’t an accessory; it’s the centerpiece. The staging ground: a place where a deep aerospace workforce and a dense supply chain can turn software-heavy aircraft into fielded capability. Luckey’s excitement about fighter jets captures the moment—the race is on to build aircraft that think fast, launch often, and can be delivered as quickly as they’re coded.
