AFA 2026: Swarm Aero unveils long-range strike UAV

A full-size model of Swarm Aero's Gamera Group 5 UAS at the Air, Space, and Cyber Conference in September 2026. A JASSM/LRASM family cruise missile is shown carried on a central hardpoint. (Janes/Jeremiah Cushman)

Swarm Aero, headquartered in Oxnard, California, unveiled its Gamera Group 5 unmanned aircraft system (UAS) on 14 September during the Air & Space Forces Association's Air, Space, and Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland.

Gamera is “designed to employ heavyweight, long-range missile payloads including LRASM [Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile]/JASSM-ER [Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range]” and has a range of 9,000 nm, according to a company statement.

“Gamera can deliver standoff long-range strike effects at 10x lower cost-per-effect. Swarms of Gamera can operate organically and will complement existing and planned force structure,” the statement claimed.

Design philosophy

“Four years ago, we came up with this thesis that it was possible to manufacture this class of large aircraft for significantly cheaper, and design them to be able to carry very large payloads,” Oliver Palmer, co-founder and chief revenue officer for Swarm Aero, told Janes at the conference on 14 September.

“This is first principles analysis of how do we solve the problem differently? It was a bit of a bet that the Air Force would expand its approach to include long range strike in its stable of large unmanned systems,” he said, adding that Swarm Aero has submitted Gamera for the air force's Massed Modular Aircraft (MMA) programme.

“Before there was any requirement for this, we gave ourselves three internal requirements. Carry an LRASM, take it from outside the second island chain to the Taiwan operating area, loiter for multiple hours and go back without any refuelling, and then the third was as low a cost as possible,” Palmer said.