On 10 September 2026 San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GA-ASI) revealed that it has developed a new unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) called Wildfire focused on capability and affordability at scale.
A clean-sheet aircraft designed to maximise future investments in large UAVs, Wildfire draws upon GA-ASI’s more than 30 years of experience in delivering over 1,600 UAVs, including MQ-1B Predators, MQ-9A Reapers, MQ-9B SkyGuardians, MQ-20 Avengers and FQ-42A collaborative combat aircraft.
The company noted that its UAVs “have amassed nearly 10 million total flight hours, mostly in combat, and introduced many of the technologies and concepts now emulated by others around the world”.
The Wildfire concept
The concept behind Wildfire was to merge the best features of GA-ASI’s proven UAVs with lower-cost components, tailored capabilities and reimagined modularity. For defence customers, this enables Wildfire to be fielded quickly in large numbers, take risk in kinetic battlefield roles and bring significant mass to the fight in ways that would have been prohibitive with other systems.
In non-combat roles, Wildfire’s increased payload capacity and stronger hardpoints provide new options for heavy cargo delivery and other commercial activities.
Wildfire will be highly autonomous and designed for collaborative operations “on Day One, leveraging our FQ-42A systems”, GA-ASI stated.
Part of the same class of medium-altitude, long-endurance aircraft as the earlier-model MQ-9A Reaper UAV, Wildfire can carry a greater payload, has a longer range and costs less.
Featuring multi-spectral targeting sensors and other onboard systems, Wildfire “will provide class-leading intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), as well as other capabilities” said GA-ASI, adding that the aircraft has been designed to accommodate a range of potent effectors, including long-range precision strike weapons.
GA-ASI has proposed Wildfire for the US Air Force’s Massed Modular Aircraft (MMA) competition within the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), which aims to develop an alternative to the MQ-9A Reaper. Wildfire “meets or surpasses all requirements of that request 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”, GA-ASI asserted.
Wildfire can also carry four Joint Strike Missiles simultaneously, or numerous other combinations of munitions, launched effects, sensors or other payloads.
Advanced autonomy provides for networked, collaborative combat control of dozens of Wildfires at once, while the aircraft’s proliferated low-Earth orbit satellite controls have already been proven on numerous current GA-ASI platforms.
GA-ASI asserts that Wildfire can be delivered years earlier than the FY2031 timeline defined by the DIU, producing more than twice as many aircraft in the same amount of time, thanks to the company’s robust, existing manufacturing footprint and extensive network of suppliers, subcontractors and partners.
GA-ASI President David R Alexander was quoted as saying of Wildfire in a company press release, “This is exactly the right design for high-demand missions and cost-conscious customers. 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.
“We’ve defined the top end of what medium-altitude, long-endurance uncrewed aircraft can do,” Alexander continued. “Our MQ-9B is showing that it can do almost anything – hunt for submarines, defend against drones, perform airborne early warning and many other missions – and that won’t change. But Wildfire is different; it’s focused on core ISR, strike and similar roles. This is a high-volume, lower-cost airplane that does a few things really well.”
