Lankan Ranger
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Next generation of Global Hawks ready to roll
It is easy to forget that the now-ubiquitous unmanned air vehicle that will be the subject of numerous presentations at AUVSI's Unmanned Systems North America 2010 exhibition in Denver was originally deployed to Afghanistan in 2001 as a prototype pressed into early service.
Nine aircraft in what is now known as the Global Hawk's Block 10 configuration were built in initial low-rate production, which, in a rare move for the US Department of Defense, ran concurrently with the engineering and manufacturing development of the UAV.
Since then, the programme has grown into the Pentagon's gold standard for high-altitude long-endurance UAVs, alternately garnering praise and ire from the DoD - praise for its capabilities and ire for its cost and schedule. In that time, Global Hawk has also evolved into a variety of iterations, each with unique capabilities.
Soon a new version, the Block 40, will roll off the Palmdale, California production line and into service on a mission slightly different from its elder cousins.
Now known as the Dragonlady's probable killer, the RQ-4 Global Hawk, built by Northrop Grumman, is set to replace the U-2 spyplane, but only in its Block 30 reconnaissance configuration, says Ed Walby, Northrop's unmanned air system programme's director of business development, and himself a former U-2 Dragonlady driver.
"In looking at the Global Hawk fleet, the Block 30 is the U-2 replacement and the backbone of long-endurance high-altitude reconnaissance for the United States Air Force," says Walby. "Block 40 was an added capability, but more of a surveillance capability and less for reconnaissance.
The Block 40 is for intelligence and surveillance, which is a slightly different community and a slightly different mode of operation. Although there's a lot of crossover."
Next generation of Global Hawks ready to roll
It is easy to forget that the now-ubiquitous unmanned air vehicle that will be the subject of numerous presentations at AUVSI's Unmanned Systems North America 2010 exhibition in Denver was originally deployed to Afghanistan in 2001 as a prototype pressed into early service.
Nine aircraft in what is now known as the Global Hawk's Block 10 configuration were built in initial low-rate production, which, in a rare move for the US Department of Defense, ran concurrently with the engineering and manufacturing development of the UAV.
Since then, the programme has grown into the Pentagon's gold standard for high-altitude long-endurance UAVs, alternately garnering praise and ire from the DoD - praise for its capabilities and ire for its cost and schedule. In that time, Global Hawk has also evolved into a variety of iterations, each with unique capabilities.
Soon a new version, the Block 40, will roll off the Palmdale, California production line and into service on a mission slightly different from its elder cousins.
Now known as the Dragonlady's probable killer, the RQ-4 Global Hawk, built by Northrop Grumman, is set to replace the U-2 spyplane, but only in its Block 30 reconnaissance configuration, says Ed Walby, Northrop's unmanned air system programme's director of business development, and himself a former U-2 Dragonlady driver.
"In looking at the Global Hawk fleet, the Block 30 is the U-2 replacement and the backbone of long-endurance high-altitude reconnaissance for the United States Air Force," says Walby. "Block 40 was an added capability, but more of a surveillance capability and less for reconnaissance.
The Block 40 is for intelligence and surveillance, which is a slightly different community and a slightly different mode of operation. Although there's a lot of crossover."
Next generation of Global Hawks ready to roll
