The Air Force’s hunt for a Reaper successor tells you everything about where cleared talent needs to focus in the next three years. The MQ-9A performed well in Operation Epic Fury — the Chief of Staff called it the MVP — but the production line shut down last year, losses mounted, and the service now wants something cheaper, modular, and attritable. They’re partnering with DIU on the Massed Modular Aircraft effort, aiming for an initial operating capability in fiscal 2031 with a design that accepts combat losses by design and flies in swarms when needed.
If you’re running engineering, autonomy, or program leadership in the unmanned space, this is your lane. The Air Force is borrowing heavily from the Collaborative Combat Aircraft playbook: open architecture, the Autonomy Government Reference Architecture as the software backbone, a concept refinement phase starting first quarter FY27, and competition among both primes and nontraditional firms. They want modular payloads you can swap at the speed of need — sensors, weapons, fuel — and autonomy that scales from ground-control to full mission autonomy over time. It’s a portfolio play, not a single platform.
We’re already mapping this market for a handful of clients. The talent gap isn’t in legacy ISR — it’s in leaders who can marry autonomy software, open systems, and rapid prototyping with the operational realities of a TS/SCI environment and combatant commander timelines. If you’ve built attritable systems, led DIU engagements, or stood up modular architectures that actually fielded, now’s the time to surface.