First Look At General Atomics’ Wildfire, Its Successor To The MQ-9 Reaper (Updated)

General Atomics revealed Wildfire, a clean-sheet unmanned aircraft proposed as a more affordable successor to the MQ-9 Reaper for intelligence and strike missions. The design is being developed for the Defense Innovation Unit's Massed Modular Aircraft effort, emphasizing modular payloads, rapid manufacture and operation in contested environments. Images show a long-endurance, pusher-propeller configuration, but the company has not released a complete performance specification. Wildfire remains a development candidate rather than an adopted program, and projected price, production rate and operational claims require validation through the DIU evaluation and flight-test process.