Swarm Aero has unveiled Gamera, an autonomous uncrewed aircraft the company is positioning for the Air Force’s emerging Massed Modular Aircraft, or MMA, effort. The company presented the design at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference as the service signaled that it wants MMAs to succeed the MQ-9 Reaper fleet at a substantially lower per-aircraft price point.

The California company has spent four years building toward what it expected would be a requirement for a long-range aircraft able to carry substantial payloads at scale, Swarm Aero Chief Executive Peter Kalogiannis told Defense One. Gamera is intended for strike and sensing missions and uses the company’s Legion command-and-control and autonomy software.

A design aimed at range, payload flexibility and production

Gamera is a clean-sheet Group 5 uncrewed aircraft with a roughly 72-foot wingspan, according to Swarm Aero. The company says it is designed to carry a 2,800-pound payload, fly 9,000 miles unrefueled, and operate with a 2,300-mile combat radius and hours of time on station at its patrol area. Those payload and combat-radius figures align with specifications reported as part of the Air Force’s MMA wish list.

The aircraft has a single propeller, central fuselage and centerline hardpoint, with fuel carried in sponsons on either side. Its twin-boom, T-tail configuration resembles that of the OV-10 Bronco. Kalogiannis said the tail arrangement is meant to accommodate different kinds of payloads, including released and rocket-powered weapons, while also supporting a straightforward manufacturing approach.

Swarm Aero says Gamera has seven payload connection points: a centerline station and six additional hardpoints. Company renderings have depicted configurations carrying Hellfire or JAGM missiles for direct strike, podded sensors for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, and air-to-air missiles. The company has identified the JASSM-ER cruise missile as Gamera’s native payload; it says the aircraft is designed to employ bomber-class strike weapons as well as sensing payloads.

Other production-oriented decisions include removable wings separated from the fuel system, or a dry-wing design, Kalogiannis said. He said Swarm Aero considered cost, manufacturability and production scale from the outset rather than trying to lower the cost of an existing design later. Company executives have also pointed to a $10 million Air Force Research Laboratory contract to develop metal composites, which they say is being applied to aerostructure development.

Targeting the MMA price point

The MMA initiative calls for a lower-cost successor to General Atomics’ MQ-9, with a target price of $10 million per aircraft. Kalogiannis said that target enables the production volumes Swarm Aero has designed for and that Gamera would be competitive at that price point. Co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer Oliver Palmer said the company expects its unit cost to come in below $10 million, though he did not say by how much.

“We thought there would be a need that ultimately…to carry a very large payload like the LRASM that we see here, a long distance, and do so as cost effectively as possible,”

Peter Kalogiannis, Swarm Aero CEO, to Defense One

The company argues that a lower-priced, modular aircraft can be acquired in numbers and used alongside crewed combat aircraft. Palmer said Gamera could assume missions that might otherwise fall to bombers, fighters, B-21s and F-47s, allowing those aircraft to be used where they are most effective. Swarm Aero also says Legion can enable a single operator or team to direct clusters of dozens of uncrewed systems across multiple domains, and describes Gamera as most effective in groups of up to 80.

Palmer framed the MMA effort as an opportunity to expand competition in large-aircraft production, arguing that long-running program structures must adapt as technology competition evolves. He pointed to the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft approach as a precedent for a more competitive model and said Swarm Aero welcomed the prospect of a similar approach for MMA.

Prototype work underway

Swarm Aero is building “several” Gamera prototypes at its facility in Oxnard, California, and expects the first flight by the end of 2027. The aircraft’s unveiling comes at an early stage in the Air Force’s MMA planning, but the program’s potential scale has already drawn attention: the service confirmed during the conference that it plans to buy 500 MMAs by 2032, according to The War Zone.

Gamera will enter a field that includes General Atomics’ Wildfire, a medium-altitude, long-endurance aircraft derived from the MQ-9. Swarm Aero, however, is pitching a distinct design premise: an aircraft conceived from the beginning for long-range strike, sensing and operations in groups, rather than a lower-cost version of an existing platform. Whether that approach meets the Air Force’s eventual requirements will depend on how the service defines the MMA competition and evaluates the aircraft now being developed for it.