Military squawk. Civilian call sign. Flying west of Trump National golf club now.
This Shadowy Testbed Jet Has Been Flying Missions With A False Registration For Months
The highly modified airliner has a colorful past, but in recent years it seems to have faded deeper into the shadows.
The shadowy world of flying sensor test bed aircraft, both foreign and domestic, is a fascinating one. These highly modified airliners and business jets do critical work validating new radars, missile seekers, data-links, targeting pods and much more. Some of the shyest among them also work to quantify aircrafts’ thermal and radar signatures from an air-to-air perspective. But one of these aircraft—a gonzo-nosed DC-9, known as a NC-9D, with an interesting backstory—has been suddenly quite active and seems to suffer from a case of multiple identifies.
The DC-9 in question began its life 41 years ago as a typical airliner and went on to serve with Ansett, Spirit, and Midway airlines. Then in 1998 it was converted into a major avionics and sensor systems test bed by BAE and Raytheon. The jet had a major modification to its nose section, with a big bulbous fairing installed that can accept modular sensor payloads, such as fire control radars and missile seekers. The aircraft is also fitted with a large communications array that runs along its spine. A ventral antenna farm is also present on the aircraft as well.
The aircraft was named “Firebird II” and it wore a high-profile purple and white scheme with a big phoenix on its tail. Its civilian registration was N932ML. In the mid 2000s the jet was put into storage at Mojave Air and Space Port before being brought back into service a couple years later in 2008, when it began flying sporadically for testing assignments once again. At some time there appears to have been an organizational change with how the aircraft was owned and operated.
According to Flightaware.com, the last time the aircraft was flown under its N number—which it supposedly still wears—was in 2011. According to FAA records the aircraft’s registration is not active and hasn’t been for some time. What’s most interesting is that the owner under its lapsed registration is listed as the US Navy with an address at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake—the Navy’s leading-edge research and flight test center near Death Valley, California.
The jet, which has been repainted in a discreet blue and white motif, sans giant phoenix on its tail, also has the active Navy bureau number 168277, which odd. But what makes all this even more interesting is that it has been flying under a completely different N number, that being N879AD. This registration does not exist at all in the FAA’s database.
https://www.twz.com/17019/this-shadowy-testbed-jet-has-been-flying-missions-with-a-false-registration-for-months