MIAMI – Today in Aviation, the first flight of the Lockheed Martin CATBird, a highly modified Boeing 737-330, took place at the Mojave Spaceport in 2007.
The Lockheed Martin CATBird was built as an avionics flight test aircraft. The name is an adaptive acronym, from the Cooperative Avionics Test Bed; CATBIRD is coincidentally the ICAO-designated corporate callsign of Lockheed.
The aircraft was adapted to provide the avionics suite for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II with an economical means of developing and flight testing. CATBird has a distinctive look, with the nose of an F-35 and a pair of small canards positioned just aft of read more ⇒
Source:: “Airways Magazine”