Swarm Aero unveils Gamera long-range unmanned aircraft

Swarm Aero unveiled a new Group 5 uncrewed aircraft, Gamera, on Monday. The California company presented the design at the Air & Space Forces Association's Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, as the US Air Force weighs options for its next generation of large drones.

Gamera has a 72-foot wingspan and a Honeywell TPE331 turboprop. According to Swarm, it can fly over 9,000 nautical miles on one load of fuel and carry more than 2,800 pounds across seven payload stations. The company says the design can take LRASM and JASSM-ER weapons as well as other cruise and hypersonic missiles.

Swarm is offering Gamera for the Massed Modular Aircraft programme, a joint effort by the Air Force and the Defense Innovation Unit to find cheaper drones that could fly missions now handled by the MQ-9 Reaper. The programme calls for aircraft that can carry at least 2,800 pounds and operate in riskier conditions than expensive legacy platforms. Air Force officials have stressed modular designs that can be built in larger numbers.

Development has been under way since Swarm was founded in 2022. The company also built Legion, its command-and-control software for coordinating several unmanned aircraft, and has received more than $10 million in Air Force Research Laboratory contracts tied to high-rate composite manufacturing. Swarm says it sees longer-term potential civil applications for the technology, including logistics.