Jane Edwards
The latest version of the Firebird optionally-manned aircraft built by Northrop Grumman’s Scaled Composites subsidiary has been seen flying at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, the Drive reported Saturday.
Northrop’s H03 Firebird intelligence gathering aircraft, which has the civil registration code N326JG, has been photographed by photojournalist David Wirth and features a large air data boom and an updated nacelle and engine configuration.
The report said the aircraft appears to have a two-person cockpit arrangement, a twin-boom configuration and a single sensor turret and seems to carry multispectral video cameras, designators and laser rangefinders.
The aircraft appears to have line-of-sight datalinks and its right boom seems to have a “platter†antenna that is likely related to a set of UHF satellite communications tools, the report added.
