AUSA 2026: Northrop Grumman, Lumberjack expected to start customer demos in 2027

Lumberjack, Northrop Grumman's Group 3 UAS on display at AUSA 2026. (Janes/Jordan McDonald)

Northrop Grumman expects to perform demonstrations for potential customers in 2027 of Lumberjack, the company's Group 3 uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) under development in a partnership with ESAero.

Craig Doty, director of business development for Mission Next at Northrop Grumman, told Janes at the 2026 Association of the US Army Annual Meeting and Exposition that Northrop Grumman has spoken to four services (US Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Army) to date about potential applications for Lumberjack.

“Everybody has a different kind of perspective. Agnostic of what it says on the side, could the other service use it if they needed to? Could the Marine Corps launch it and the Army use it?” he said on 14 October. “It is designed that way as well…tailorable and flexible, intra-service and inter-service”.

According to Doty, the programme will start customer demos in 2027, putting Lumberjack through endurance tests to demonstrate a use case for the armed forces.

“I don't see integration of other systems as a problem. I don't see going to fly this as a problem. I don't see coming off of launchers, air, or ground as a problem,” he said. “It's just making sure with anything new, once you get that first sale, then everybody understands how it's going to be utilised and go forward. For us, these tests that are coming up, [they] just prove we can do all the things that are out there.”