Jim Garrettson, chief executive officer of Executive Mosaic, presented Chris Pehrson, vice president of Strategic Development for General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, with the Chairman’s Award for completing his second year as chairman of the Unmanned Systems Group for Executive Mosaic’s 4x24 program.

The U.S. Air Force prepares to transition to the General Atomics-built MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft this year as the service branch plans to retire its MQ-1 Predator RPAs in 2018 in an effort to build up readiness and keep pace with the changing combat environment. The 20th attack squadron …

The U.S. Air Force will select two locations from a pool of candidate air bases to house General Atomics-built MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft and related operations. The service branch said Thursday the first location will host an MQ-9 operations group with mission control elements while the second location will have a full MQ-9 wing with a launch and …

The U.S. Army and members of a General Atomics team displayed prototypes of anti-drone weapons that look to meet what the service branch calls “unlimited-ammunition” goals at the Maneuver Fires Integrated Experiment event. Two types of weaponry — one using lasers and the other using electricity-propelled projectiles — were displayed throughout the event that …

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection has begun the performance tests for the General Atomics-built Predator B unmanned aircraft system at a demonstration set to take place at a civilian airport in Texas. CBP’s air and marine operations unit kicked off the four-week deployment at the San Angelo regional airport last …

The U.S. Army marked the final flight of its first unmanned aircraft system as part of the transition toward a new UAS that will support the service branch’s surveillance and reconnaissance operations. The Army said Dec. 21 the General Atomics-built Grey Eagle drone will replace the Hunter, which will redeploy from Fort Hood in …

General Atomics and Kazakhstan Engineering have inked a memorandum of understanding on the in-country testing and evaluation of the General Atomics Predator XP unmanned aerial vehicle, IHS Jane’s 360 reported Wednesday. Under the MOU with Kazakhstan’s state-owned defense firm, General Atomics will lease the UAV to enable the evaluation to be performed within Kazakhstan, reports Charles Forrester, citing a …

The White House plans to add missiles and laser-guided bombs to Italy’s drone fleet, Adam Entous writes for the Wall Street Journal. Entous reports the White House submitted a letter of request to Congress in April to arm six Italian Reaper drones, built by General Atomics. U.S. officials have indicated that …

The U.S. Marine Corps has transitioned to a government-owned, contractor-operated (GOCO) model for the MQ-9A unmanned aircraft system, built by General Atomics' aeronautical systems business. Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 1 (VMU-1) obtained the military branch's first Reaper after three years of using the Reaper UAS under a contractor-owned, contractor-operated construct. 

The U.S. Air Force intends to update its MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles with new technology that could support military efforts to address emerging threats from near-peer competition. USAF said Wednesday that it will award General Atomics' aeronautical systems business a delivery order to build a multidomain operation variant of the MQ-9 platform.