Air Claw
Air Claw
Air Claw
Air Claw

July 11, 2012 – Herndon, USA  (Techreleased) – Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) and Quest Aircraft Company unveiled the Air Claw™ special mission demonstrator at the Airborne Law Enforcement Association conference in Reno, Nev., today.

Northrop Grumman and Quest signed a teaming agreement in March for Northrop Grumman to be the U.S. federal dealer of the Quest KODIAK, a single-engine short takeoff and landing aircraft, as well as their preferred special mission aircraft integrator.

“This is an exciting moment for us,” said Tom Kubit, director, airborne operationally responsive systems campaign, Northrop Grumman Technical Services. “Air Claw™ offers a highly affordable yet extremely capable and rapidly adaptable special mission aircraft in today’s budget-constrained environment. We employed 21 years of special mission aircraft integration experience, with law enforcement, partner nations and special operations in mind as the end users. Air Claw™ can be delivered for considerably less than today’s most popular base airframes before they’re ever modified.”

The Air Claw™ baseline offering includes a Hawkeye wide-area motion imagery sensor from Persistent Surveillance Systems, FLIR 380HD electro-optical infrared camera, tactical voice communications including P-25 first responder frequencies, wide-band data link, integrated mission planning and execution software, rapidly reconfigurable interior for multimission applications, and a mobile ground station for processing, exploiting and disseminating data. Kubit also said this is just the baseline model and that there are numerous options for integration into Air Claw™.

Quest builds the KODIAK at its facilities in Sandpoint, Idaho. Northrop Grumman is integrating and delivering the aircraft at the company’s Aberdeen Integration Center in Baltimore, Md., at its Martin State Airport facility.