The MQ-1C Gray Eagle uncrewed aerial system (UAS) has used the AGM-114L Longbow Hellfire missile, in conjunction with its onboard radar, to shoot down a drone in live-fire tests, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) has confirmed to TWZ. While there is currently a major drive in the development of different counter-UAS (C-UAS) systems involving kinetic and non-kinetic solutions, using the Gray Eagle to bring down drones using Hellfire missiles is a new and intriguing development.
GA-ASI has “demonstrated live-fire takedown using Longbow Hellfire from Gray Eagle to eliminate a small UAS,” C. Mark Brinkley, a company spokesman, told TWZ. Arming the adaptable Gray Eagle with Hellfire missiles is not the only counter-UAS option that GA-ASI is currently pursuing with this platform.
“Additionally, our company-funded, live-fire demo of podded miniguns from Gray Eagle STOL (Short Takeoff and Landing) conducted last year offers another interesting and affordable kinetic option for counter-UAS operations,” Brinkley added. “These flying trash cans simply aren’t built to withstand incoming 7.62mm rounds, and the miniguns could offer other armed overwatch options not previously explored.”
This is a reference to the Dillon Aero DAP-6 Minigun pods, a weapon system that has been live-fire tested from the GA-ASI Mojave demonstrator drone at the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Ground.
The Mojave demonstrator has now led to the Gray Eagle STOL version of MQ-1C, which has a configuration tailored for operations from remote or austere locations with rough strips and limited logistical support, with an emphasis on supporting various kinds of expeditionary and distributed operations. More recently, General Atomics has touted the Gray Eagle STOL’s capabilities in experiments on aircraft carriers and big-deck amphibious assault ships.
General Atomics’ Brinkley said the company plans to unveil a new kinetic option for Gray Eagle STOL “in the next few months that would further lower the price tag for C-UAS response, while also increasing accuracy and flexibility.” It’s unclear if this is a reference to the aforementioned Longbow Hellfire, although the reference to reduced costs would seem to point to another, cheaper option, perhaps a laser-guided rocket.
As well as kinetic and non-kinetic means of bringing down hostile drones, GA-ASI has also adapted onboard sensors to allow its drones to detect, track, and then engage the UAS in the first place.
“We have conducted numerous flight tests using our Lynx and EagleEye radar systems for target acquisition and tracking of small UAS,” Brinkley confirmed.
The EagleEye synthetic aperture radar can detect and track ground targets out to 50 miles and maritime targets out to 124 miles, although its capability against aerial threats is not presently known. However, with a new active electronically scanned array (AESA) antenna and associated software for EagleEye being developed, this will further increase its range and add to its multi-mode performance.
These flight tests are especially significant in that they have utilized the proprietary GA-ASI radars in an air-to-air mode to provide detection, including in the critical look-down mode, and onboard weapons cueing.
Meanwhile, GA-ASI is also continuing to work on a drone-mounted podded laser for C-UAS missions. The podded laser, which the company says is now in development as a concept, was shown mounted on an MQ-9B SkyGuardian drone in a graphic at the Air Force Association’s 2025 Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colorado, last month, and again this month at the Sea-Air-Space Conference in National Harbor, Maryland as reported on by Naval News. GA-ASI appears to be primarily pitching this pod for fleet defense against one-way attack drones.
Brinkley says the company already has “a very mature laser technology” for this application. However, it should be noted that, in general, airborne lasers have been much harder to realize than originally envisioned, with many programs related to them cancelled on technical grounds, as you can read about here.
At this point, however, the standout item is the live-fire trials of Longbow Hellfire aboard a Gray Eagle drone for the C-UAS mission.
Bearing in mind the fast-growing trend for harnessing new ways of neutralizing the drone threat, combining the Gray Eagle and Lockheed Martin’s AGM-114L Longbow Hellfire for this application makes a lot of sense.
At the same time, there is already a precedent for using Longbow Hellfire, which is millimeter-wave radar-guided instead of laser-guided like other Hellfire variants, to shoot down drones.
While the AGM-114 Hellfire was developed as an air-to-ground weapon and has been mainly used as such, the Longbow variant does have an air defense role against drones. Notably, Israel has been using the AH-64 Apache in attack helicopters in an air defense capacity for years, including one well-known shootdown of a Hezbollah drone close to the Syrian border.
In October last year, the U.S. Army published a video showing its AH-64D Longbow Apache helicopters practicing detecting and destroying enemy aerial drones while forward deployed to the Middle East, a region where the drone threat — especially from one-way attack munitions or ‘kamikaze drones’ — has exploded in recent months.
The Army video appears to show a variant or modification of the Longbow Hellfire, with initial cuing for its millimeter-wave radar seeker provided by the Apache’s AN/APG-78 Longbow mast-mounted radar system. The same radar can detect and track aerial targets, such as lower-flying helicopters, and also aerial drones.
The Longbow Hellfire also has a demonstrated capability to engage aerial threats when launched from other platforms, including ones on the ground. More recently, the U.S. Navy carried out a crash program to enable its Freedom class Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) armed with AGM-114Ls to employ them against drones. The LCSs originally received the radar-guided Hellfires to help defend against swarms of small boats.
While the U.S. military still has significant stocks of AGM-114Ls in inventory, the missile is out of production. Lockheed Martin’s new AGM-179A Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM), which has a dual-mode laser and millimeter-wave radar guidance package, is now entering U.S. service as a successor to other Hellfire variants. It could also supplant the Longbow version, including in the air-to-air role.
At this point, it should be recalled that the U.S. Air Force has successfully integrated the AIM-9X Sidewinder heat-seeking air-to-air missile onto its MQ-9 Reaper drone, this combination scoring its first ever air-to-air kill in an exercise in 2017. Not long after that, the service announced that it was looking to give at least some of these unmanned aircraft the ability to take on aerial threats, providing them with a significant self-protection capability that could also be complementary to the drone-hunting developments for the MQ-1C.
While it’s not clear how the UAS target was detected and tracked in the Gray Eagle C-UAS live-fire experiment, specifically, it may be that one of the aforementioned Lynx or EagleEye radar systems, produced by GA-ASI, was used. In another scenario, the radar could be used for the detection of a drone threat, with the Multi-Spectral Targeting System (MTS) then used for identification and laser designation, should laser weapons be used on the Gray Eagle in the future.
However, the engagement played out, the potential of a drone-killing combination of Gray Eagle and Longbow Hellfire is compelling.
For the most part, C-UAS systems are ground-based, meaning their flexibility and responsiveness are necessarily limited.
In contrast, a drone like the Gray Eagle can be redirected to provide a counter-drone capability wherever it might be most needed. The drones can also be forward-based, operating very close to ground forces. They can then be launched fairly rapidly in response to incoming threats. This is especially the case for the Gray Eagle STOL version.
The short-field capabilities found in the Gray Eagle STOL were ported over from the Mojave demonstrator, the stated performance of which includes a takeoff run of 400 feet for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, or 1,000 feet when armed with 12 Hellfire missiles.
Furthermore, a Gray Eagle drone carrying Hellfire missiles — or a combination of these and other weapons — would not be a single-role platform, as many more traditional C-UAS systems are. As well as intercepting drones, the Gray Eagle could offer armed escort for ground forces and provide overwatch with its sensors. Highly significant is also the endurance of these drones, which are able to stay on station for 24 hours or more. This persistence is ideal for providing surveillance in a C-UAS scenario, as well as screening for drones transiting a given area, creating something like a combat air patrol (CAP).
While fighter aircraft have increasingly taken on a drone intercept role with great success, they are very costly and can only stay on station for short periods of time without refueling support. On the other hand, they can run-down drones in scenarios where a Gray Eagle could not. Still, for lower volume threats and for point defense applications over or near a specific target area, the MQ-1C could be extremely valuable.
The Longbow Hellfire does remain a higher-end solution for dealing with lower-end drones. As we have discussed in the past, it costs around $215,000 to buy a single, basic AGM-114, with the radar-guided Longbow models costing even more. Still, this is far cheaper than common air-to-air missiles, which have at lease double the cost. In the case of the workhorse AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM), the unit price is around $1 million a round.
This is all very likely driving interest in an even cheaper kinetic C-UAS option for Gray Eagle.
The Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) laser-guided rocket, for example, is far less costly than a Hellfire, coming in at around $25,000-30,0000 per round. A rocket-based weapon like APKWS II would also provide the Gray Eagle with a much larger magazine of effectors, although only one drone could be engaged at a time due to the type’s laser guidance. Still, getting into a position to employ APKWS II would be more of a challenge for MQ-1C than a fighter aircraft, especially rapidly against multiple targets. F-16s have been effective at employing APKWS II against drones over the Red Sea. A new APKWS II model that offers pseudo-fire-and-forget capability with the help of an additional infrared seeker is in the works, which will simplify engagements and reduce the time it takes to prosecute them.
Potentially even more important for overcoming these cost and magazine depth issues are laser weapons, like the aforementioned podded design that General Atomics is working on now, provided this challenging technology can be mastered.
While there are still many questions around GA-ASI’s Gray Eagle/Longbow Hellfire C-UAS trials, they underscore how drones themselves are increasingly being seen as an effective counter to the UAS threat, especially at the lower end of the scale.
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