New videos give an even clearer view – unquestionably our best ever – of the legendary classified stealth drone, previously seen making an emergency landing in Greece last month.
Last month, we reported on images taken in Larissa, Greece, showing what we, and others, concluded – based on prior sightings and comment from familiar sources – was the U.S. Air Force’s secretive and still undisclosed ‘RQ-180’ stealth UAV. We do not know the official designation for this airframe, so we, like many others, use the label RQ-180 in lieu of this.
The aircraft had apparently appeared in daylight hours over Greece owing to an in flight emergency, requiring a diversion – though this may have been a cover story linked to the clearly incorrect explanation that it was a B-2 Spirit. As we reported, Larissa is not unfamiliar to U.S. drone operations. After news of the video trickled out, the aircraft quickly picked up the colloqial nickname ‘Lady of Larissa’.
Now, in recent days, even more video footage from Greece has emerged online, taken by The Aviationist reader Efthymios Siakaras, showing a view almost directly underneath the aircraft as it apparently makes an approach to land.
The new, closer angle allows us to see details on the aircraft we’ve never previously been able to make out. We have a clear view of the jet’s landing gear configuration (which definitively rules out any question of this being a B-21 Raider), as well as a good look at what appears to be a large transparent aperture for visible light or infrared sensors fitted flush to the belly of the airframe.
Though we could guess previously about what sensors may or may not be carried by the RQ-180, this video gives us our first apparent confirmation of what its payload can include. Most likely, the aircraft has been designed with a wide array of sensor capabilities, including synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and signals intelligence (SIGINT) equipment.
Some sensor payloads may be interchangeable for other configurations based on the mission type, or the configurations may vary according to specific airframes across the total fleet. Nine pre-production examples of the RQ-180 are known to exist, as recorded by Peter Merlin, and around twice as many production airframes are thought to have subsequently been constructed. These aircraft may even sport different paint schemes, with some artwork seen in mission patches and logos hinting at dark-coloured airframes as well as the ‘White Bat’ or ‘Shikaka’ style examples.
We are also able to clearly see the aircraft’s control surfaces in action. Fairly traditional flaperons are evident on each wing, though we can also see a control surface at the rear of the fuselage. This is similar to what is seen on both the B-2 Spirit and B-21 Raider. In the case of the B-2, this control surface has frequently been labelled the ‘beaver tail’ – more officially it is known as the Gust Load Alleviation System or GLAS.
The earliest videos taken by Siakaras were published on Mar. 11, 2026, which aligns with the onlarissa.gr article’s mention that the images it featured on Mar. 18 were from ‘the end of last week’. More recent videos are dated within the 24 hours of writing this article, showing cloudy grey skies instead of the blue skies in the other videos.
This would support the idea that Larissa is in fact being used as a regular forward operating location for the RQ-180, as previously suggested by movements of C-17s to the base direct from Edwards Air Force Base, California (near to Palmdale’s Plant 42 where the RQ-180 was most likely developed by Northrop Grumman).
These photos are really interesting as they explain the two C-17s which flew from Edwards Air Force Base to Larissa Air Base in Greece in early March and late February.
Boeing C-17 Globemaster III 2x#AE07F8 97-0046 – REACH 532 (9 Mar)#AE1196 03-3113 – REACH 432 (25 Feb)… https://t.co/Jb0vx0zzzG pic.twitter.com/EnKMatkh1w
— Armchair Admiral 🇬🇧 (@ArmchairAdml) March 18, 2026
Another C-17 flight from Edwards to Larissa (with stopovers) arrived and subsequently departed on the morning of Apr. 6 as REACH 1844.
Larissa does have two interesting hangars, far away from other built up areas of the airfield, which may have been constructed to support clandestine drone operations. Notably the U.S. MQ-9 Reapers based there are instead known to operate from hangars to the north of the airfield (as also seen on satellite imagery), rather than these two. Based on historical satellite imagery, the hangars were constructed within the last few years.
It has previously been thought that the most likely RQ-180 forward bases in Europe would be at RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus or Naval Air Station Sigonella on Sicily. Akrotiri, in particular, is quite well suited for this use case, being owned and operated by a Five Eyes ally and existing within sovereign territory used almost exclusively for military purposes, bordered on three sides by open sea.
Larissa, however, might offer added flexibility to RQ-180 (and, it should be noted, RQ-170) operations and may have been developed with Black Sea or even Ukraine overflight missions in mind. Though further inland than the other two options, primarily operating at night could mitigate at least some degree of exposure risk. Additionally, aircraft spotting at military installations outside of official events is heavily restricted in Greece and has resulted in unfamiliar foreign tourists being arrested and charged on several occasions.
The Northrop Grumman RQ-180 landing at Larissa air base in Greece yesterday. This is the first time the public has heard what a 180 sounds like. 😎🤙 pic.twitter.com/iYZWHQaSai
— Thenewarea51 (@thenewarea51) March 19, 2026
The RQ-180 is thought to have been in frontline use for quite some time, and it was only an eventuality that at some point it would begin making more public appearances. An official reveal of the aircraft has been suggested as an upcoming possibility by industry commentators for a number of years, but none has yet been forthcoming.
Instead, the approaching in-service date of the B-21 Raider might have been judged by U.S. authorities to provide an even better way to keep the RQ-180’s activity under wraps as the planform of the two aircraft is similar, much more so than the B-2 with its sawtooth trailing edge introduced late in development to improve low altitude performance.
If the RQ-180 does continue to get more of a public spotlight, the question that remains is what, if anything, might the U.S. Air Force have in the wings that takes the RQ-180’s capabilities to the next level?
