more at
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone...anned-firebird

--- https://youtu.be/Ue7xnnCdS0k

One of the most exciting developments in aerial surveillance isn't happening at
some shadowy Air Force Base in the middle of Nevada desert, it's occurring at
Mojave Air and Space Port, a bustling bastion of aerospace creativity, located
50 miles to the southeast of Bakersfield, California. There, Northrop Grumman is
working hard to make Medium Altitude, Long Endurance (MALE) unmanned aircraft
capabilities accessible to a far larger global customer base than what exists
today. They believe this lofty goal can be achieved by bringing an optionally
manned, highly unique looking aircraft to the marketplace. That aircraft is the
Northrop Grumman Firebird, a plane whose obscure development we here at The War
Zone followed intensely, albeit from a distance, as nobody in an official
capacity has been willing to discuss it—that is until now.

The concept is as bewilderingly logical as it is downright exciting—create an
aircraft that can fly very efficiently at medium altitudes for very long periods
of time while also possessing the ability to swoop down below bad weather if
need be. Ideally, this aircraft would also carry a wide variety of sensor and
communications payloads, many of which can be outfitted concurrently during a
single mission. These payloads would also have to be rapidly reconfigurable in
the field, allowing for a single aircraft to accomplish disparate mission types
simultaneously. But above all else, this transformer of a flying machine would
need to be able to go from manned to unmanned operations in just a handful of
hours.

All this is precisely what Firebird was built to do.

The Firebird concept actually dates the back to the latter half of the 2000s,
with Scaled Composites, Northrop Grumman’s storied subsidiary, eventually
building a technology demonstrator. That highly experimental aircraft was a
forerunner to the current Northrop Grumman designed Firebird, which is a
clean-sheet, production-ready aircraft. Scaled Composites’ Firebird demonstrator
first flew in 2010 and proved that an optionally manned, highly flexible
surveillance aircraft could not only work, but it could compete for missions
with both unmanned and manned platforms at the same time and win on both fronts.

----

The current Firebird's greatest trick is its ability to transform in the field.
It can go from manned to unmanned mode in just four hours. The process of
converting the aircraft is remarkably straightforward. A Northrop Grumman
official described the process to us in detail, stating:

----

Firebird's ability to rapidly convert from a manned to an unmanned aircraft
opens up a whole new universe of flexibility. Just being able to self-deploy an
aircraft with MALE capabilities to forward operating locations by having a pilot
onboard solves many issues that dog relatively advanced unmanned aircraft till
this very day.

Unlike its unmanned counterparts, Firebird doesn't need to be able to be broken
down and stuffed in 'caskets' before being loaded onto an airlifter and flown to
where it is needed—an expensive and logistically complex affair that is outside
the budgets of many potential customers that have a need for MALE capabilities.


more at
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone...anned-firebird



*