Just 557 days after announcing its mega-factory in Central Ohio, defense technology company Anduril Industries marked a landmark milestone on Monday: the first Ohio-built Fury semi-autonomous fighter rolled off the production line at Arsenal-1
In an industry where greenfield aerospace assembly plants routinely take three to five years to move from announcement to a finished aircraft, Anduril and its Ohio partners compressed permitting, factory construction, equipping, workforce hiring and final assembly into 18 months
The company commemorated the moment with an on-site family and friends day, bringing hundreds of employees and relatives onto the plant floor alongside Gov. Mike DeWine and regional leaders
Why it matters
Arsenal-1 is the core production hub supporting the U.S. Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program. In June, the Air Force selected Anduril to move the FQ-44 Fury airframe into production alongside its Lattice mission autonomy software — the first time a venture-backed entrant has secured a major fighter aircraft program since the 1970s
Meet Fury
Fury is a robotic wingman: a semi-autonomous fighter designed to fly alongside crewed aircraft. The first completed unit took 126 days from start to finish and is the first aircraft built at Arsenal-1
Anduril began production work at the site in March, three months ahead of its original July target. In its baseline configuration, the assembly line is engineered to produce up to 150 Fury aircraft annually
Inside the build
- 143 Anduril workerson site at Arsenal-1 as of July 27, 2026
- 557 days — from project announcement to first completed aircraft
- 126 days — start-to-finish production time for the first Fury
- 4,000 jobs — committed direct production and service roles by 2035, the largest single job creation and new payroll project in Ohio history
- $910.5 million — capital investment committed by Anduril
- 5 million sq. ft. — planned footprint across 500 acres at full buildout, spanning around 12 buildings on the Anduril campus
The built-in-Ohio story
One year ago, Anduril had no team members at Arsenal-1. Today 143 technicians, engineers, and specialists work on site, said Vice President John Malone, an Ohio native who oversees the production line. Many are local hires who spent months training at company headquarters in California before returning to launch the Pickaway County line
That initial cohort is the front end of a much larger economic engine. Local leaders emphasized that the campus creates a direct pipeline for regional high schools and career-technical programs, letting students build advanced technology careers without leaving the area. “Corn, soybeans and aircraft can grow side by side,” said Pickaway County Commissioner Jay Wippel
What they’re saying
Anduril co-founder and COO Matt Grimm cast the campus as a deliberate break from how the defense industry builds: “Arsenal exists to change that.” On the decision to put it in Pickaway County, he added, “We knew that Ohio was the natural place to build this.”
“This is a team that when they tell you they’re going to do it, they do it,” DeWine said of Anduril — a success story the state is now selling to other companies
The governor said what Ohioans are producing at Arsenal-1 will protect the men and women in the armed forces, and closed with a line that landed with the plant crowd: “Ohio is red hot today. This is Ohio’s time.”
What comes next
Arsenal-1 sits near Rickenbacker International Airport with runway access for testing and development. Anduril says the finished campus will have the capacity to produce tens of thousands of autonomous systems for the U.S. and its allies. This week’s Fury was just the start
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