General Atomics Unveils Wildfire, a Cheaper Drone Built to Replace Its Own MQ-9 Reaper

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has unveiled Wildfire, a clean-sheet uncrewed aircraft it is pitching as the successor to its own MQ-9A Reaper. The company announced the design on September 10, 2026, a day after posting a first video of it.

GA-ASI has proposed Wildfire for the Massed Modular Aircraft (MMA) competition, which the US Air Force is running with the Defense Innovation Unit to find a lower-cost alternative to the Reaper. So far the company has shown only renderings and video.

What General Atomics is promising

According to GA-ASI, Wildfire exceeds the competition’s 8,000 nautical mile ferry range requirement and can carry two Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles or four Joint Strike Missiles. The Reaper cannot carry either weapon, GA-ASI spokesman C. Mark Brinkley told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The company describes an aircraft built around lower-cost components and “reimagined modularity,” intended to be fielded quickly in large numbers and flown into missions where losses are expected. It says Wildfire will operate collaboratively from day one using autonomy from its FQ-42A, the drone it builds for the Air Force’s collaborative combat aircraft program.

“This is a high-volume, lower-cost airplane that does a few things really well,” GA-ASI President David R. Alexander said. He drew a line between Wildfire, focused on intelligence gathering and strike, and the multi-mission MQ-9B, which will continue to hunt submarines and fly airborne early warning.

The renderings show a pusher-propeller layout similar to the MQ-9 family but without its distinctive dorsal hump, The War Zone reported. GA-ASI also says it can deliver years ahead of the DIU’s fiscal 2031 timeline and build more than twice as many aircraft in that time.

Why the Air Force is replacing the Reaper now

The Reaper has been a workhorse among the military drones flying in the war with Iran, and it has paid for that. As of August 13, the Pentagon had lost 45 Reapers in Operation Epic Fury, about a quarter of the fleet, according to Washington Post figures cited by DefenseScoop.

“Although we have plenty of MQ-9As today, we are going through them at a rate that is concerning to us,” Lt. Gen. Christopher Niemi said. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink has directed officials to speed up the program, which originally aimed for 20 aircraft in service by fiscal 2031.

The Air Force plans to buy at least 180 MMA aircraft at an air vehicle price of about $10 million each. The requirements call for at least 2,800 pounds (1,270 kg) of payload, a combat radius of at least 2,300 nautical miles with that payload, and operation from 6,000-foot runways.

That list explains the shift in thinking. The Reaper was built to loiter over territory where no one could shoot back, and each loss is expensive to replace. MMA asks for an aircraft cheap enough to lose, modular enough to swap sensors and weapons quickly, and long-legged enough to fly itself one way to a distant theater.

The anti-ship missiles in GA-ASI’s renderings point the same way. A Reaper replacement that can launch LRASM would be built for a maritime fight the original aircraft was never designed for.