Last Updated on April 6, 2026 by allieddispatch | Published: March 30, 2026
By Allied Dispatch UK
TECHNOLOGY | Defence Innovation
Airbus has announced a major milestone in autonomous aerial defence following the successful first demonstration flight of its “Bird of Prey” uncrewed interceptor. During the flight test, the prototype successfully identified, tracked, and engaged a target drone with a Mark I air-to-air missile developed by defence tech start-up Frankenburg Technologies. This marked the first time the system has been tested against a live threat.
The demonstration, conducted at a military training area in Northern Germany, was designed to prove the interceptor’s ability to act as a “hard-kill” solution for modern drone threats.
The demonstration flight took place just nine months after the project started. Based on a modified Airbus Do-DT25 drone, the Bird of Prey prototype used in the flight features a wingspan of 2.5 metres, a length of 3.1 metres, and a maximum take-off weight of 160 kg. While the prototype was equipped with four Mark I air-to-air missiles, the operational version will be able to carry up to eight of them. The high-subsonic, fire-and-forget missiles have an engagement range of up to 1.5 kilometres, measure 65 centimetres in length and weigh less than 2 kg each, making them the lightest guided interceptors developed to date. They are equipped with a fragmentation warhead designed to neutralise targets at short proximity. This will enable the reusable Bird of Prey to engage and neutralise multiple kamikaze drones per mission, at a comparably low cost per kill.
Bird of Prey is designed to seamlessly operate within NATO’s integrated air defence architecture via established command and control systems centred around Airbus’ Integrated Battle Management System (IBMS). Consequently, the counter UAS (Uncrewed Aerial System) solution Bird of Prey can be an essential, highly mobile and complementary building block of any integrated and layered air and missile defence solution.
Mike Schoellhorn, CEO Airbus Defence and Space, stated:
“Against the current geopolitical and military backdrop, defending against kamikaze drones is a tactical priority that urgently needs to be tackled,” said Mike Schoellhorn, CEO Airbus Defence and Space. “With our Bird of Prey and Frankenburg’s affordable Mark I missiles, we are providing armed forces with an effective, cost-efficient interceptor, filling a crucial capability gap in today’s asymmetric conflict theatres. The integration of Bird of Prey into Airbus’ air defence battle management suite IBMS acts as a force multiplier.Following this successful engagement, Airbus will continue the trial program with a focus on “swarming” scenarios, where multiple Bird of Prey interceptors will work together to neutralise multiple incoming targets.”
Kusti Salm, CEO of Frankenburg Technologies. added:
”Together with Airbus, it marks the first integration of a new class of low-cost, mass-manufacturable interceptor missiles onto a drone, creating a new cost curve for air defence and enabling defence against mass aerial threats at a fundamentally different scale.”
Airbus and Frankenburg plan to conduct additional flights with a live warhead throughout 2026 to further operationalise the system and demonstrate its full capabilities to interested potential customers.