US Navy leaders are considering proposals to deploy two Northrop Grumman RQ-4A Global Hawk unmanned air vehicles originally purchased only to perform high-altitude surveillance demonstrations. The manufacturer says the Global Hawk’s impressive showing in the two-week Trident Warrior ’05 exercise, which concluded in early December, and pressing operational needs have helped to remove lingering doubts about the vehicle’s utility.
“The naysayers were saying they didn’t think the [USN’s maritime mode] radar was going to work and you couldn’t do surveillance from 60,000ft [18,300m],” says Tom Twomey, Northrop’s Global Hawk maritime demonstration business development manager. “The last two weeks have been a huge success story. We saw that not only does it work, it works really darn good.”
Delivered last October, the navy’s RQ-4As are identical to the US Air Force’s current Global Hawks, but feature new maritime search radar modes and a 360° LR100 signals intelligence sensor. The air vehicles were used during the exercise to identify maritime targets at ranges up to 200km (110nm) and to search for mock terrorist camps on San Nicholas island off the California coast. “We are absolutely elated with the performance of the maritime modes,” says Twomey.
USN officials have asked Northrop for data on what it would take to deploy the Global Hawks. Although the RQ-4As were purchased for demonstration purposes only, the air vehicles and ground-control station are essentially ready for deployment, says Twomey.
But the navy’s deployment plan could be complicated by manpower constraints. The service has so far contracted Northrop to hire and train only five pilots – enough to staff at least one 24h Global Hawk flight, but insufficient to sustain that activity on a daily basis.
STEPHEN TRIMBLE/WASHINGTON DC
Source: Flight International
