MQ-9 Reaper

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, the privately held San Diego incumbent behind the Predator lineage, makes the MQ-9 Reaper, the canonical legacy medium-altitude long-endurance remotely-piloted aircraft against which the AI-first new-defense wave is contrasted. The MQ-9A first flew on February 2, 2001 and entered service in May 2007; it is flown by a crew of a pilot, a sensor operator, and a mission-intelligence coordinator at a ground control station, with roughly thirty hours of ISR endurance, a 3,800-pound payload, and Hellfire missiles and laser- and GPS-guided bombs. As of 2026 some 575 have been built, with the US Air Force operating about 158 active plus 24 Air National Guard aircraft at the end of fiscal 2025 and the Marine Corps receiving its final MQ-9A in June 2025, alongside operators including the UK, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Critically and honestly, the Reaper is remotely piloted, not autonomous: humans retain flight control and all weapons decisions, with automatic takeoff, landing, and threat-tracking as assistance features, and the newer Quadratix software introduced in March 2025 adds AI and autonomy for single-operator multi-sensor ISR on the MQ-9B but remains operator-controlled rather than an autonomous kill chain, so the word drone should not imply AI-autonomy here. A lifecycle nuance worth recording: the MQ-9A production line closed in 2025 after the Air Force declined further buys, while the longer-endurance MQ-9B SkyGuardian and SeaGuardian, operated by the UK as Protector RG Mk1 and contracted to Taiwan and Germany, are the active in-production successor, so this single record spans a mature, sunsetting platform and its in-production replacement.

MQ-9 Reaper is listed at $20,000,000 to $32,000,000 on the DEPLOY registry. This is an actual sale price on record.

Yes. MQ-9 Reaper is independently verified in real-world operation on the DEPLOY registry, confirmed at named deployment sites with primary sources: not a concept, render, or demo-only.

MQ-9 Reaper is made by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, based in Poway, California, USA, founded in 1993.

4 verified deployments of MQ-9 Reaper are on the DEPLOY registry, including at United States, Poway, Global.

MQ-9 Reaper is available for purchase - a real sale price is on record (see the pricing section for the figure and its source).

On the DEPLOY registry, comparable aerial robots to MQ-9 Reaper include Wing Delivery Aircraft, Skydio X10, Zipline Platform 2 (P2), Prime Air MK30.

MQ-9 Reaper and Wing Delivery Aircraft (Wing · 35 deployments) are both aerial robots on the DEPLOY registry. MQ-9 Reaper has 4 verified deployments on record. Compare both records for specs, safety, deployments, and verified-vs-claimed autonomy.

On DEPLOY's intelligence score, which blends verified deployments, safety, adoption, media, and IP signals, MQ-9 Reaper ranks in roughly the top 14% of aerial models tracked by the registry.

MQ-9 Reaper is at the production stage on the DEPLOY maturity ladder (research, prototype, pilot, commercial, production). Production stage means high-volume manufacture and commercial-scale deployments are sustained.

MQ-9 Reaper has 3 active incidents on record in the DEPLOY registry. 3 incidents on record (1 critical, 1 serious, 1 moderate). Most recent: Apr 2026. Retracted incidents are excluded from this count.