A superior fleet,fielded this year.
Public U.S. programs want 500 loyal wingmen and 500 Reaper-successors by 2032, thousands of one-way attackers for SOF, a carrier tanker that does not arrive until 2029, and a counter-drone magazine that still loses the cost-exchange. MERIDIAN is the unclassified concept that closes those gaps with eight airframes and a cost ladder — not a 2032 slide.
Vanguard
XQ-26A
Meridian design bureau
Conceptual · not a program of record
Platform families
8
Theater to ammunition
FY26 buy
$2.98B
Recommended first lot
FY32 inventory
248K
Tails, darts, and boats
Public needs mapped
19
Open-source, cited
Doctrine
Four layers, one kill web
- 01
Theater
Jets and tankers that move with the air wing — optionally attritable.
- 02
Operational
ISR/strike and maritime hunters that hold a campaign open.
- 03
Tactical mass
Ammunition with wings. Fielded this year, not in 2032.
- 04
Protection
The magazine that answers the other magazine.
Procurement ramp
Spend the cheap first
Cumulative recommended buy, billions. Tactical mass and C-UAS fill in FY26; CCA-class and tankers scale through FY32.
The eight
Platform catalog
XQ-26A
Vanguard
Collaborative combat aircraft — dual-role air superiority and strike wingman
- Unit
- $18.0M
- FY26
- 48
- Radius
- 850 nm
MQ-26B
Harrier
Massed modular ISR / strike — MQ-9 successor at attritable cost
- Unit
- $8.50M
- FY26
- 60
- Radius
- 1,200 nm
KQ-26C
Cistern
Uncrewed tanker, mesh node, and decoy tanker
- Unit
- $38.0M
- FY26
- 12
- Radius
- 1,500 nm
RQ-26D
Kestrel
Group 2/3 tactical ISR for the squad and company
- Unit
- $85K
- FY26
- 2,400
- Radius
- 80 nm
BQM-26E
Lance
One-way attack family — squad, company, and theater
- Unit
- $12K
- FY26
- 12K
- Radius
- 22 nm
EQ-26F
Shade
Expendable EW, decoy, and communications relay
- Unit
- $45K
- FY26
- 1,800
- Radius
- 160 nm
MQM-26G
Aegis
Counter-UAS interceptor family — kinetic, recoverable RF, and magazine-fed
- Unit
- $28K
- FY26
- 8,000
- Radius
- 12 nm
XSM-26H
Nereid
Paired uncrewed surface hunter and extra-large UUV
- Unit
- $3.20M
- FY26
- 40
- Radius
- 1,800 nm
What this is not
No classified material. No stolen drawings.
Actual U.S. military blueprints are classified and not on the public internet. MERIDIAN is an original concept architecture built from publicly reported requirements as of 16 September 2026 — SECAF Meink’s 500 CCA / 500 MMA targets, CCA Increment 1 designations FQ-42A Vengeance and FQ-44A Fury, the MQ-25A Lot 1 award, Army LASSO / Switchblade 400, Replicator’s under-delivery, Coyote C-UAS buys, and USAFE’s European IAMD vignettes. Names, geometries, and costs here are conceptual. They are designed to be better than the public plan, not to reproduce a real program of record.