GA-ASI completes maiden flight of Belgium’s first MQ-9B SkyGuardian

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GA-ASI) and the Belgian Ministry of Defence have completed the first flight of a new MQ-9B SkyGuardian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that will be the first SkyGuardian delivered to Belgium as part of a four-aircraft purchase, GA-ASI announced on 25 March 2025.

The flight, which took place on 20 February 2025 out of GA-ASI’s Desert Horizon Flight Operations Facility in El Mirage, California, is part of a series of ground and flight tests conducted to validate the performance of the Belgian MQ-9B. The objective of the flight was to prove controllability and safe landing of the aircraft. With the flight successfully concluded, the programme will now move forward with further development flight tests.

“We’re excited to complete the first flight of SkyGuardian for Belgium,” Chris Dusseault, GA-ASI’s vice president for the MQ-9B in Europe, was quoted as saying in a company press release. “Belgium joins the UK’s Royal Air Force and will become the second country to take delivery of our MQ-9B in Europe.”

GA-ASI bills the MQ-9B as the world’s most advanced UAV. With a wingspan of 24 m and powered by a Honeywell TPE331-10 turboprob, it has an endurance that exceeds 30 hours, a range of more than 5,000 n miles (9,260 km) depending on configuration, an internal payload capacity of 363 kg and an external payload capacity of 2,155 kg using one centreline and eight wing hardpoints. The MQ-9B features auto take-off and landing under pole-to-pole satellite-communications-only control and will be able to operate in unsegregated airspace using a GA-ASI-developed detect-and-avoid system.

The MQ-9B family includes the SkyGuardian and SeaGuardian models, with multiple deliveries made to the UK Royal Air Force (under the Protector programme), as well as orders from Canada, Poland, the Japan Coast Guard, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, Taiwan, India and the US Air Force in support of US Special Operations Command.