The US Air Force has released its first image of the Scaled Composites Proteus manned testbed aircraft flying with a pod that will, from September, support trials of the Northrop Grumman/Raytheon multi-platform radar technology insertion programme (MP-RTIP) sensor.

USAF  MP-RTIP W445
© USAF

The Northrop-owned Proteus demonstrator will simulate the capabilities of the MP-RTIP-equipped Block 40 Northrop RQ-4 Global Hawk high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned air vehicle, which will be delivered from 2011 at a projected unit cost of $41.6 million.

Source: Flight International