The Firefly is powered by a commercially available miniature solid fuel rocket motor that gives a flight time of approximately 8 seconds. The UAV can cover 800-1,000 m (2,600–3,300 ft) before disintegrating on impact with the ground. The airframe is constructed from PVC plastic with glass-fibre fins for stabilisation. The payload is a fixed focal-length disposable CCD video camera and a 1.5 GHz L-band data-link. The UAV is launched by a hand-held "gun". Flight testing for the system began in mid-2005 and Firefly sub-systems were being used to support the development of a hand-launched micro-UAV.