The 2 testbeds, recognized by their callsigns SCAN 06 and VOODOO 1, carried out concurrent operations in Eglin’s extremely instrumented airspace.
For 3 consecutive days, on Mar. 24, 25 and 26, two testbed plane, the Northrop Grumman CRJ-700 carrying the U.S. license plate N806X and sometimes working utilizing the radio callsign “SCAN 06”, and the Raytheon’s Boeing 727, with registration N289MT and radio callsign “VOODOO 1,” carried out concurrent missions over the Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America).
The 2 plane are extraordinarily attention-grabbing. SCAN 06 is among the three closely modified CRJ700s owned by Northrop Grumman, the others being N804X and N805X, used to check sensors and communication techniques earlier than they’re built-in into frontline fight plane. These jets might be reconfigured to assist completely different developmental actions, together with new radars, EW (Digital Warfare) suites, focusing on pods, missile seekers, and countermeasures. As we defined intimately right here, N806X includes a peculiar “pointy” nostril bearing a hanging resemblance to the AIM-260 Joint Superior Tactical Missile (JATM) seen in renderings of the BVRAAM (Past Visible Vary Air-to-Air Missile). For that reason, the plane is believed to be concerned within the improvement of the AIM-260, a missile slated to exchange the AIM-120 AMRAAM, which has been below improvement since 2017, with flight testing already underway for a while now.
Equally, the well-known Boeing 727 VOODOO 1, or RMT (Raytheon Multi-program Testbed) sports activities an F-15 nostril radome and was used to check the AN/APG-82 Lively Electronically Scanned Array – AESA lately. As TWZ reported when the plane took half in train Valiant Defend in June 2022: “Voodoo 1 is a key check asset for Raytheon. It has traditionally been largely related to the event of superior radars, which it could actually keep on flight exams in its distinctly modified nostril, which is principally that of an F-15 Eagle. This contains work on the AN/APG-63 collection of Eagle radars, and extra lately, the AN/APG-82 Lively Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) kind, variations of that are used on the Air Pressure’s new F-15EX Eagle II fighters and are being built-in onto present F-15E Strike Eagle fight jets. Air Pressure B-52H bombers are additionally set to obtain a variant of the AN/APG-82 as a part of a radar improve program.”
Information collected by Flightradar24 present an attention-grabbing “image” of the actions carried out by the 2 plane final week.
VOODOO 1 carried out a mission from Eglin AFB, Florida, on Mar. 23, 2026. Whereas flight-tracking web sites don’t present every other plane working alongside the Raytheon testbed that day, it’s price remembering that not all plane, significantly navy ones, are seen on these platforms. Subsequently, N289MT should have flown a check mission involving different airborne belongings that weren’t trackable, or in coordination with floor stations or vessels.
The Raytheon radar testbed 727 N289MT, aka Voodoo-1, was energetic out over the gulf about an hour in the past.
📷 credit score Stephen Stein pic.twitter.com/zrQO4DmZ4A
— MeNMyRC (@MeNMyRC1) March 23, 2026
SCAN 06 flew from its base at Baltimore/Washington Worldwide Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) in Maryland to Eglin AFB on Mar. 23, 2026. The primary mission, on Mar. 24, noticed the CRJ depart from Eglin at 12.35LT and land after 3 hours and 21 minutes. SCAN 06 operated at round 27,000 ft inside a restricted airspace (W-151) whereas VOODOO 1 remained barely larger at roughly 27,850 ft, with the Northrop Grumman testbed flying what regarded like a flower-shaped sample harking back to sure calibration-style tracks. Noteworthy, the barometric altitude proven by Flightradar24 is actually a pressure-derived worth and should differ barely from the plane’s precise assigned Flight Stage when transformed into ft. For instance, a displayed altitude of 27,850 ft would very possible correspond in apply to FL280. The discrepancy was most likely attributable to the distinction between commonplace stress (1013.2 hPa/29.92 inHg) and the actual atmospheric stress within the space, in addition to by the way in which barometric knowledge are transmitted, rounded, and displayed by the monitoring platform. Above the transition altitude, plane not use the native altimeter setting (QNH), however swap to the usual stress setting and are then assigned flight ranges moderately than true altitudes above imply sea stage.
On Mar. 25, the mission lasted 2 hours and 52 minutes with departure at 11.52LT. VOODOO 1 once more stayed larger, at round 27,000 ft, whereas SCAN 06 flew decrease and extra variable profiles between roughly 25,000 and 15,000-16,000 ft, with the 2 plane showing to observe parallel tracks.
On Mar. 26 (2h 54m with take off at 12.56LT), the geometry modified as proven within the picture under, with SCAN 06 at about 15,825 ft and Voodoo 1 decrease at roughly 12,575 ft.
Curiously, because the screenshots present, through the testing marketing campaign on Mar. 24, 25 and 26, SCAN 06 has all the time operated to the East of VOODOO 1.
Taken collectively, these mission profiles that may be noticed with altitude relationships and flight patterns appear to level to a collection of check setups involving completely different relative positions, geometries and sensor or data-collection circumstances, though, in fact, the accessible proof doesn’t permit the exact goal of the sorties to be decided.
Nonetheless, the truth that the Northrop Grumman testbed was flying in firm with Raytheon’s VOODOO 1 for 3 consecutive days at Eglin is especially attention-grabbing, because it suggests the exercise could have concerned some extent of integration between the sensors carried by the 2 platforms. As defined, VOODOO 1 is Raytheon’s airborne radar and mission-systems testbed, a platform that has already been used each to judge superior radar capabilities in flight and to assist demonstrations or workouts involving the gathering, fusion and dissemination of focusing on knowledge throughout a wider community. We will solely speculate right here, however we are able to define quite a lot of exams the 2 testbeds could have been concerned in, together with telemetry-rich sensor, radar, communications or data-link testing tied to a distributed kill chain, the technology and sharing of targeting-quality tracks, broader battle-network experimentation, or different types of mid-course assist related to a contemporary BVRAAM.
Eglin Take a look at & Coaching Complicated
The exercise happened inside W-151 airspace over one of the vital necessary check environments in the US. Certainly, the Japanese Gulf Take a look at and Coaching Vary, or Eglin Gulf Take a look at and Coaching Vary, is the most important navy vary within the continental U.S., providing the capability, instrumentation and security footprint required for each real-life and simulated warfighting situations. Stretching from Key West to Northwest Florida and masking some 180,000 sq. miles of DoW-controlled airspace, the vary helps every part from missile and plane testing to high-altitude supersonic air fight coaching, air-to-air missile trials, drone testing and hypersonic weapons evaluations. It’s subsequently an excellent setting for the testing of next-generation air armaments in sensible combat-surrogate circumstances.
Curiously, Aaron Perlupo, who took the photographs of the 2 testbeds yow will discover on this submit, talked about that one other fairly well-known testbed, the secretive RAT (or RATT) 55, a extremely modified B737 fitted with superior radar know-how, and thought for use nearly solely to judge the radar signatures of stealthy plane, was additionally deployed to Florida working out of Macdill a minimum of 4 days previous to VOODOO and SCAN working out of Eglin.
“I used to be visiting the area with a buddy, and I noticed VOODOO1 on Flightradar24 land at Eglin AFB,” Aaron informed us in an e mail. “I additionally heard a report that RATT55 was in Florida, so I satisfied my buddy to drive to Eglin to try to see them. Whereas planning the drive to Eglin, I observed SCAN06 arrive and begin flying circles with VOODOO. We drove to a public space north of the airport within the mid afternoon, the place I used to be capable of spot SCAN with the missile connected to its nostril. As quickly as I noticed the missile I knew one thing was up, however I had no thought what kind of missile or mission it was till another person pointed it out to me after the actual fact.”
AIM-260 JATM
Coping with the missile, right here’s what we wrote in a earlier submit concerning the AIM-260:
Supposed to function the first long-range air-to-air weapon of each the U.S. Air Pressure and U.S. Navy within the coming years, the AIM-260 is seen as America’s counter to more and more superior missile applied sciences below improvement by the Folks’s Republic of China. In comparison with the AIM-120 AMRAAM it’s supposed to exchange, the AIM-260 will characteristic a extra succesful rocket motor offering speeds as much as Mach 5 and a spread of over 200 kilometers.
The present AIM-120D-3 AMRAAM variant is claimed to supply round 160 kilometers of vary. The AMRAAM will proceed to be developed, with new variants supposed to enhance, moderately than compete with, the JATM. Moreover, it’s possible many abroad prospects would go for newer fashions of the AMRAAM which might be extra economical to buy and acquainted to function.
Together with manned tactical fighter plane just like the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II, the AIM-260 is predicted to be built-in on the U.S. Air Pressure’s upcoming unmanned Collaborative Fight Plane (CCA). CCAs will function in tandem with manned fighters, providing the potential to hold a higher payload into fight in addition to offering a platform capable of be despatched into excessive risk environments with out putting pilots at elevated danger.
Earlier statements have claimed AIM-260 manufacturing will overtake AIM-120 manufacturing by 2026. It’s unknown whether or not this milestone continues to be on schedule, although it’s possible {that a} important variety of AIM-260 items have been produced and shall be fielded within the close to future.
H/T to Aaron Perlupo for sending us the pictures of SCAN 06 and VOODOO 1. You’ll be able to observe him on Instagram right here.
