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 service lost airframes, the production line is closed, and a $50 million platform built for permissive environments doesn’t survive in contested airspace. The Massed Modular Aircraft effort through DIU isn’t just another program of record; it’s a forcing function for attritable, modular systems that can be lost and replaced at scale.
If you’re running engineering, autonomy, or program leadership in the ISR or unmanned space, this is your signal. The Air Force wants an open architecture tied to the Autonomy Government Reference Architecture, a concept refinement phase kicking off in Q1 FY27, and IOC with 20 mission-ready aircraft by FY31. They’re pulling lessons directly from Collaborative Combat Aircraft — multiple performers, prototype competition, nontraditional primes welcome — and they mean it. The talent war for engineers who understand modular payloads, autonomy stacks, and attrition-tolerant design is already underway.
We’re mapping this market now. If your background touches MQ-9 sustainment, CCA autonomy, or you’ve built anything modular and attritable that self-deploys 8,000 nautical miles, the phone is going to ring. Cleared program leaders who can translate operational vignettes into scalable production will be impossible to find in twelve months. Better to surface early.