FORT WALTON BEACH, Florida—U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command is looking to go big with a new autonomy effort, moving from solely focusing on using MQ-9 Reapers as host to its C-130 variants.

The command for the past two years has been working on its Adaptive Airborne Enterprise (A2E) effort, which would use Reapers to air-launch smaller uncrewed air vehicles (UAV) to allow one service member to operate multiple UAVs at once. Command officials say they want to get beyond this “myopic” view and shift A2E to platform-agnostic, with the ultimate hope of air-launching swarms from other platforms, including pallets on MC-130s or wing-mounted pods on AC-130 gunships.

The command last year demonstrated MQ-9s air-launching smaller UAVs, using the Golden Horde autonomy system to control four of the systems. While four is not a full “swarm” yet, it is more than one, officials argue...

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