MQ-1C Gray Eagle
Country: 
United StatesManufacturer: General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI)
The MQ-1C Gray Eagle is the US Army's MALE drone: derived from the Predator, it integrates Manned-Unmanned Teaming with Apache helicopters and is the workhorse of US Army aviation brigades.
The MQ-1C Gray Eagle is the US Army's MALE drone: derived from the Predator, it integrates Manned-Unmanned Teaming with Apache helicopters and is the workhorse of US Army aviation brigades.
Community
Data trust
- Reliability
- Unverified
- Sources
- Sources pending review
Identity
- Designation
- MQ-1C Gray Eagle
- Alias
- Improved Gray Eagle / Gray Eagle 25M
- Manufacturer
- General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI)
- Country
- United States
- Year
- 2009
- Category
- UCAV (Combat UAV)
- Class
- MALE (Medium-altitude / long-endurance)
- Status
- In service
Performance
- Range
- 400 km
- Endurance
- 27 h
- Top speed
- 309 km/h
- Service ceiling
- 8,840 m
- Propulsion
- Diesel Thielert Centurion 1.7 (heavy fuel JP-8), 165 hp
Physical characteristics
- MTOW
- 1633 kg
- Payload
- 488 kg
- Hardpoints
- 4
- Weapons
- AGM-114 Hellfire, GBU-44 Viper Strike
Onboard systems
- Sensors
- AN/ZPY-1 STARLite SAR/GMTI, EO/IR MTS-B, SIGINT
- Datalink / control
- SATCOM + LOS C-band, integrazione MUM-T con AH-64E Apache
- Launch
- Decollo da pista
- Recovery
- Atterraggio automatico su pista
Production & inventory
- Estimated inventory
- ~165 in servizio US Army
Combat use
- ▸Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria (2009-) — ISR and Hellfire strikes for Army brigades
- ▸AFRICOM operations in Niger and Mali (2017-)
- ▸Poland and Romania deployment (2022-) for eastern-Europe deterrence
Tags
Main operators
History
Developed from 2002 as the Warrior under the ERMP program, redesignated MQ-1C Gray Eagle and entered US Army service in 2009. It has logged over 1 million flight hours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Gray Eagle 25M variant (2023) introduces modular open-architecture sensors and uprated propulsion for contested airspace peer-level operations.
On the development side, the MQ-1C Gray Eagle was born from the US Army's need for its own armed MALE platform after handing the Predator to the USAF. GA-ASI developed the Warrior with a heavy-fuel (JP-8) diesel engine for unified logistics and a 488 kg payload.
Operationally, the Gray Eagle is the backbone of the Army's Manned-Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T): it shares real-time EO/IR video with AH-64E Apache Guardians via the VUIT-2 interface, in one of the world's first operational applications of the rotary-wing loyal-wingman concept.
For researchers, 'US Army drone', 'Army Predator variant', 'MUM-T Apache' and 'Gray Eagle 25M' are the trending keywords in 2024-2025 with the high-end-fight modernization.