U.S. Air Force special ops MQ-9 drones now cleared to use GBU-39B glide bomb

U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command’s MQ-9 Reaper fleet at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico, declared operational with the GBU-39B Small Diameter Bomb this spring, giving the 27th Special Operations Wing’s drone crews a weapon that can reach targets from 60 miles away while the aircraft stays well outside the range of most ground-based air defenses.

The integration took years to mature from contract to combat-ready status, but the payoff is a meaningful expansion of what special operations forces can ask their remotely piloted aircraft to do.

The GBU-39B is a 250-pound glide bomb that uses GPS and inertial navigation to guide itself to a target after release, deploying a set of small wings to extend its glide range far beyond what an unguided bomb of comparable size could achieve. It weighs about one-eighth as much as a conventional 2,000-pound bomb but carries a warhead capable of penetrating up to one meter of steel-reinforced concrete, according to the 27th SOW’s official announcement. That combination of precision and penetrating power made the GBU-39 a fixture on fighter jets and bombers long before it found its way onto the Reaper. The GBU-39 entered Air Force service in 2006 and has been employed on platforms including the F-15E, F-16, F-22, F-35, B-1, B-2, and others, with many of those aircraft able to carry a pack of four GBU-39s in place of a single 2,000-pound bomb. Over 17,000 of the weapons have been employed by the U.S. and partner nations across conflicts ranging from counterterrorism campaigns to large-scale conventional warfare, per the AFSOC announcement.

The MQ-9 Reaper, built by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and operated in its largest special operations concentration at Cannon, is a medium-altitude, long-endurance remotely piloted aircraft that has been the backbone of AFSOC’s persistent surveillance and strike mission for more than two decades. Three squadrons at Cannon, the 3rd, 12th, and 33rd Special Operations Squadrons, operate the MQ-9 Reaper platform, supporting the Counter Violent Extremism Organization mission alongside the wing’s broader precision strike and ISR taskings. The aircraft can stay airborne for 27 hours on a single mission, loitering over an area of interest for an entire day while providing ground forces with eyes and, now with the GBU-39B, considerably longer arms.

Fitting the bomb onto the MQ-9 required a purpose-built carriage system because the Reaper’s hardpoints were not previously configured to handle the weapon efficiently. The BRU-78 Dual Carriage System, manufactured by L3Harris and developed specifically for the MQ-9, allows the drone to carry two GBU-39Bs on a single hardpoint rather than one, according to reporting by The Aviationist.

Before the BRU-78, the MQ-9’s hardpoint could only accommodate a single bomb, and the BRU-61 rack used on combat aircraft to carry four GBU-39s at once would have consumed so much of the Reaper’s roughly 1,700-kilogram payload capacity that it would have severely restricted what else the aircraft could carry. The dual carriage approach threads that needle, adding meaningful firepower without pricing out the sensor suites, communications equipment, and other weapons that give the Reaper its operational flexibility.

The practical effect on what a Reaper crew can accomplish in the field comes through clearly in comments from the pilots flying these missions at Cannon. An MQ-9 pilot assigned to the 27th SOW, speaking in the AFSOC release without being named, said: “When striking targets, our intent is to maximize effects and minimize collateral damage. Carrying a higher number of low-yield munitions allows us to stay on station longer and provide more effective support to our troops on the ground.” Lt. Col. Joshua Swann, an MQ-9 squadron commander at the 27th SOW, connected the capability to the increasingly contested environments where special operations forces operate: “In this shifting battlespace, adversaries layer lethal obstacles to deny us. The GBU-39’s reach guarantees we can stay in a fight under hostile threats and continue to solve the joint force’s hard tactical problems.”

As of May 2026, more than 25 U.S. MQ-9s have been lost amid operations related to the 2026 Iran conflict, with some shot down by Iranian missiles and others destroyed on the ground during airstrikes, according to ABC News citing U.S. officials. A drone that can release a precision weapon from 60 miles away is a drone that can engage a target without ever entering the threat envelope of the air defense systems that have been downing Reapers in contested airspace. That is not a coincidental design feature; it is the operational logic driving why AFSOC pushed to get this integration done.