He declined to give an exact price, but said the new plane, equipped with a standard package of sensors, would cost about the same as a Pilatus PC-12 built by Pilatus Aircraft of Switzerland, which sells for just under $4 million, and millions less than the King Air, both without surveillance equipment.

Northrop is also pitching a new remotely-piloted unmanned plane, Sandstorm, that it says would dramatically lower the cost of training pilots to fly drones such as Predators and Reapers, giving them more opportunities to practice and possibly averting damage caused by many hard landings of the unmanned planes.

Sandstorm, which can be flown via the Internet, could also be used for testing payloads and some limited operations, said Karl Purdy, manager of new unmanned aerial system programs for the Northrop technical services division.

Each new aircraft and its control system costs less than $100,000, Purdy said, calling the program the brainchild of Don Bintz, one of the first pilots to fly the Predator drones that are built by privately held General Atomics.