General Atomics Aeronautical 
 General Atomics
MQ-20 Avenger 
First flight 4 April 2009

The first flight of the first prototype Avenger occurred on 4 April 2009 at the company's Grey Butte Field Airport Flight Operations Facility in Palmdale, California. The aircraft took off and landed without any discrepancies and was ready to fly again once refueled. Following flights were performed successfully on 13 and 14 April. The second prototype Avenger performed its first flight on 12 January 2012, meeting all performance objectives and refining the first prototype design to an operational capability. The Tail 2 prototype featured a four-foot longer fuselage to accommodate larger payloads and more fuel. This larger Avenger can carry a larger payload of up to 3,500 pounds (1,600 kg) of weapons internally and on its wing hard points. On 15 February 2012, the Air Force cancelled its MQ-X program, which was supposed to find an aircraft to replace the MQ-9 Reaper The Sea Avenger variant was part of the Navy's cancelled Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program. On 15 November 2012, the Avenger flew for three hours while being controlled by the General Atomics Advanced Cockpit Ground Control Station (GCS). The Advanced Cockpit GCS has a wrap-around visual display and multi-dimensional moving map to increase situational awareness and reduce pilot workload. The Advanced Cockpit GCS has flown an MQ-1 Predator and is planning to fly an MQ-9 Reaper as part of an Air Force initiative to enable interoperability with all USAF Remote Piloted Aircraft (RPA). In July 2013, a third Avenger was scheduled to begin flight testing. Assembly of the fourth Avenger was expected to be finished by spring 2014.