Northrop Grumman has confirmed plans to launch a new product for an intelligence-gathering aircraft or service based on a newly unveiled, mature configuration of the Firebird, the optionally piloted, single-engine aircraft that first emerged as a Scaled Composites-designed demonstrator in 2011. 
The twin-boomed Firebird’s formal launch, expected in early 2019, will reveal a new entrepreneurial strategy for the San Diego-based Autonomous Systems division of Northrop. Instead of designing the Firebird to compete directly for a share of a market already dominated by another manned or unmanned aircraft, Northrop hopes to stimulate demand for a product that offers a new set of capabilities. 
Northrop Grumman officially reveals Firebird UAS
Company plans to open new markets for intelligence-gathering aircraft
Optionally piloted aircraft is designed to operate four intelligence payloads simultaneously
“We’re not designing this product for a specific competition,” said a Northrop official. “We’re designing this product to be very, very flexible so it can meet a broad range of customer needs with minimal to no redesign of the product, because the flexibility is already there.”
Featuring a 79.2-ft. wingspan with an outboard dihedral, a Lycoming T540 piston engine with a five-blade pusher-propeller and a 45-ft.3 main payload bay, the Firebird is “exceeding” performance goals since a first flight test last March, Northrop says. The company has not released endurance and altitude specifications, but the demonstrator version of the aircraft that first flew in 2011 was designed to fly missions as long as 40 hr. above 30,000 ft. with a 72.2-ft. wingspan. 
The new version of the Firebird was revealed last May when “The War Zone” blog published pictures of a completed aircraft with registration N326JG. At the time, Northrop declined to comment on the pictures or acknowledge the existence of the internal program. In an exclusive tour of the Firebird’s hangar here on Dec. 6, Northrop also revealed a completed second test aircraft, bearing the registration N518DF. 
A second Firebird test aircraft now in flight test is expected to be ready to enter operational service next year. Credit: Northrop Grumman

It can be operated autonomously or with a crew of one or two onboard. The cockpit is configured to accommodate a pilot and mission systems operator. By replacing the glass canopy, removing the seats and installing a beyond-line-of-sight antenna, the Firebird can be reconfigured into a medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft system (UAS) within 4 hr., the Northrop official says. 
Northrop also has a concept to control the aircraft autonomously while an onboard crewmember operates the payloads. Northrop performed the first unmanned flight of the new version of the Firebird in late November.  
The Firebird also is designed to accommodate a wide range of payloads. The aircraft’s mission systems architecture has so far hosted more than two dozen different surveillance and communications systems, including tactical radios, electro-optical cameras, radars and payloads that eavesdrop on radio-frequency signals. The test aircraft registered as N518DF carried a Flir Systems Star Safire 380-HD electro-optical and infrared camera. In flight tests, the Firebird has demonstrated an ability to operate four separate intelligence payloads simultaneously, the Northrop official says. The aircraft includes hard points on the wings that may be able to carry weapons, but are designed to carry sensors, Northrop adds.
By combining that performance with flexible crewing and a diverse array of payloads, Northrop hopes to open a new market for surveillance aircraft beyond a defense contractor’s traditional customer base. The Firebird is neither an unmanned General Atomics Aeronautical Systems MQ-9 or manned Beechcraft King Air 350ER type, but aims to match or exceed either’s intelligence-gathering capability at what Northrop calls a “competitive” price point. 
“This is going to do missions that are done by manned platforms today, missions that are done by unmanned platforms today and missions that are not currently able to execute because there is nothing with the right capability at the right price point,” the Northrop official says.
The manufacturer defines the potential list of customers for the Firebird to include military, law enforcement, scientific missions and commercial companies. It will be offered on the domestic and export markets. The Firebird’s optionally piloted capability raises questions about how it will be viewed under export control policies, but bringing UAS products to a global market is, the Northrop official notes, “something we know how to do and we’re in those conversations.”
In the near-term, Northrop will deliver the Firebird as either a platform or a service to a set of unidentified U.S. government customers, which have already contracted with Northrop for the new capability, the Northrop official says. Also, discussions are underway with Mississippi-based Tenax Aerospace, a company that operates intelligence-gathering aircraft as a service for a range of government customers, including the U.S. Air Force, Army, Navy, Forest Service, Justice Department and the FAA. 
Nearly three decades ago, an Israeli inventor named Abe Karem offered a homebuilt UAS called Amber to the U.S. Air Force, intending to invent a new market for land-based, long-endurance surveillance aircraft. The Amber eventually led to the development of General Atomics’ Predator, a medium-altitude, long-endurance UAS whose derivatives continue to thrive in the market decades later. Northrop is attempting to pull off a similar coup with the Firebird. 
“There is a way the market is defined today,” the Northrop official says, “and I think we’re going to see that market get redefined as new capabilities are introduced, and I think this is going to be one of them.”