Northrop Grumman Firebird

The Northrop Grumman Firebird is an intelligence-gathering aircraft designed by Northrop Grumman's subsidiary Scaled Composites, where it is known as the Model 355. It can be flown remotely or by a pilot, which makes it an optionally piloted vehicle. It first flew in February 2010 and was unveiled on 9 May 2011, and it was one of the last designs overseen by Burt Rutan before he retired. Firebird is a twin-boom, pusher-configuration, medium-altitude long-endurance aircraft with a long slender wing, a Lycoming piston engine and an endurance of up to 40 hours. It can carry up to four modules of reconnaissance equipment at once on a system separate from the one that controls the aircraft, and it has hardpoints for weapons but is unarmed. A variant with a wider wing first flew in March 2018, and in April 2022 the company suspended production after finding no export customers.