General Atomics unveils ‘Wildfire’ drone to replace Reaper

WASHINGTON — Drone maker General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) formally revealed today its offering to replace the firm’s hunter-killer MQ-9A Reaper with a clean-sheet design the company claims can be rapidly produced and exceed the Pentagon’s targets.

General Atomics says the new drone, dubbed Wildfire, can take on missions traditionally fulfilled by the Reaper like long-endurance reconnaissance and strike. Outside of conflict, the company is pitching the aircraft for civil roles and asserts the unmanned system’s relatively greater payload combined with “stronger hardpoints” permits “new options” for tasks like shuttling commercial cargo.

“This is exactly the right design for high-demand missions and cost-conscious customers,” GA-ASI President David Alexander said in a company press release. “Our tailor-designed, attrition-tolerant Wildfire balances the high capability our aircraft are known for with huge flexibility and great scalability. There’s never been anything like it before.” 

The firm is pitching Wildfire for the Massed Modular Aircraft (MMA) program, which was launched by the Air Force and Defense Innovation Unit in July to find a successor for the Reaper. Lt. Gen. Christopher Niemi, the Air Force’s chief modernization officer, told reporters recently that the program was accelerated following “concerning” losses of the Reaper in combat operations against Iran, and emphasized the goal is to replace the venerable drone with a new system that’s cheaper and attritable. 

The Reaper can cost up to $50 million a piece depending on its configuration, according to Air Force officials. (The drone’s manufacturing ceased last year, though an upgraded version dubbed the MQ-9B SkyGuardian is in production.) According to Niemi, the Pentagon is aiming to get the cost of the MMA air vehicle to roughly $10 million a piece, a number that excludes mission equipment.  

In an industry solicitation, the Pentagon laid out targets like an ability to self-deploy 8,000 nautical miles (9,206 miles) and carry a payload of “at least” 2,800 pounds. According to the GA-ASI press release, the Wildfire “meets or surpasses all requirements” of the Pentagon’s solicitation “in dramatic fashion, exceeding 8,000 nautical miles ferry range and capable of carrying two Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles simultaneously for meaningful combat distance.”

Additionally, according to the release, the Wildfire can carry different combinations of “munitions, launched effects, sensors or other payloads” and will be “highly autonomous and designed for collaborative operations” from the outset. 

While the Pentagon’s solicitation laid out a goal of getting an MMA system operational by fiscal 2031, measured by 20 mission-ready drones, Air Force officials now want to move faster. GA-ASI says the Wildfire “can be delivered years earlier than the FY2031 timeline” and that it can produce more than double the amount of drones in that same timeframe. 

In many ways, Air Force officials expect for the MMA effort to mirror the Collaborative Combat Aircraft drone wingmen program — where GA-ASI and Anduril were both recently tapped for production deals — by featuring open architectures and successive “increments” of designs. Niemi predicted the MMA aircraft won’t have “cutting edge” technology and would “probably” be powered by a turboprop engine with “a long aspect wing.”