Airbus’ Bird of Prey Interceptor Caught a Kamikaze Drone on Its Very First Flight

Last month, in a military training area in northern Germany, a compact but lethal jet-powered drone took off from a rail launcher at dawn. Airbus calls this unmanned aircraft the Bird of Prey, which is a suitable nickname given its mission of carrying missiles under its wings to destroy enemy objectives. Last month, the Bird of Prey’s primary mission was to locate and destroy a kamikaze drone flying directly at it, which is a very regular occurrence in modern warfare.

Kamikaze drones have become a major source of concern for the military. These one-way assault drones simply fly straight in, usually at a low cost but still a nightmare to stop with traditional air defense systems, which cost a small fortune and are essentially a waste of money. As a result, armed forces are desperate for new ways to combat these swarms of oncoming threats without breaking the bank. Airbus stepped up to the plate and created the Bird of Prey to fill the void. They updated their existing target drone, the Do-DT25, to deliver a powerful punch, as it now carries missiles and is ready for action. This new aircraft is about 3.1 metres long, with a 2.5 metre wingspan, and weighs 160 kilos when it initially takes off, and boy, can it move, reaching speeds of up to 300 knots, providing the agility required to track down a fast-approaching drone.

Each of its wings has a pair of launchers for four Mark I missiles, but the production versions will carry eight. These babies are from their partners, Frankenburg Technologies. They’re smal, measuring only 65 centimeters in length and weighing less than 2 kilos, but they can fly at subsonic speeds of up to 1.5 kilometers. With a fragmentation warhead, they can easily knock out a target from close range. The fire-and-forget guidance is also quite useful, since they are essentially self-guiding, so once launched, they just find their target and destroy it.

On March 30th, the Bird of Prey underwent a test run. On that day, it was part of a much larger system, as it communicated with Airbus’ Integrated Battle Management System, which is part of the larger NATO air defense network. After taking to the air, the Bird of Prey utilized its sensors to scan the area, detect the target, this time a medium-sized target drone, identify it as a threat, and line up its shot, followed by a last check from a human operator before releasing the missile.

One of the most clever aspects of the Bird of Prey is that it is reusable; it flies out, completes its mission, and then returns to base, ready to do it all over again. In fact, one Bird of Prey can take on multiple threats in a single trip, which is precisely the type of efficiency that might alter the entire arithmetic for fighting against a mass drone attack.
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