The US Air Force's Rapid Dragon program equips cargo planes to deploy cruise missiles, strategically giving the Air Force greater flexibility and firing capacity in case of a potential conflict.

Rapid Dragon enables the C-130 and C-17 cargo aircraft fleet to drop long-range cruise missiles.

It is a force multiplier, expanding the number of strike-capable aircraft in the US Air Force arsenal. While the service has more than 140 long-range bombers in its fleet, they are outnumbered by more than 650 C-130, MC-130 and C-17 transport aircraft.

Developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory's Strategic Development Planning and Experimentation office, Rapid Dragon is a palletized and disposable weapon module that enables unmodified cargo aircraft to deploy flying cruise munitions.

The program is built to be flexible. It requires no special infrastructure on the ground, modification of aircraft or specialized extra training for the flight and crew.

At its center is the standard roll on-roll off cargo pallet that the Air Force regularly uses to drop equipment from a cargo plane. Instead of cargo, the parachute-equipped pallet carries weapons such as Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles.

Once ready for drop-off, the ramp lowers, allowing the pallet to be sucked out of the plane with a drag parachute. After that, another parachute deploys, orienting it downward and slowing its descent.

The missiles then fall out without interfering with one another, with their turbine engines activating in midair.

ACE

Rapid Dragon could shorten supply chain logistics, since the palletized munitions could be prepared in the United States and transported for forward loading on the aircraft.

The missiles' target information can be updated after crews load them for deployment, allowing mission planners to adapt during real time.

The Rapid Dragon system allows the Air Force to potentially use a wider variety of airfields, increasing the number of places from which cruise missile-carrying aircraft can deploy.

That ability builds on the Air Force's Agile Combat Employment (ACE) concept, which shifts airpower from large, standalone bases to dispersed locations and cluster bases.

Rapid Dragon is well suited to enhance this approach. Transport aircraft are forward deployed in many parts of the world, ready for a possible early counteroffensive, while long-range bombers can be dispatched from the United States

US Air Force Central regularly practices these tactics as part of Operation Agile Spartan (OAS).

The most recent OAS was held on January 26, across the Arabian Peninsula to evaluate the US Air Force's ability to react and respond to regional threats as a unified coalition force and to validate the effectiveness of ACE concepts.