Mary-Louise Hoffman
Northrop Grumman‘s Global Hawk unmanned surveillance aircraft has achieved a milestone by completing 100 southwest Asian missions for the U.S. Air Force.
The Air Force 69th Reconnaissance Group has extended the RQ-4 drone’s operational area to the Pacific region, Northrop said Thursday.
Global Hawk is built with a multi-platform sensor technology that works to locate stationary or moving targets.
The branch keeps its Global Hawk fleet at Beale Air Force Base in California and deploys the UAV to perform wide-area surveillance within the U.S. Central and Africa Command’s area of operations.
R-Q4 attained initial operational capability in September 2013 and is scheduled to undergo initial operational test and evaluation next spring.
Northrop says that Global Hawk has recorded more than 115,000 flight hours to date and has been used by military customers to support ISR, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and counterterrorism missions worldwide.
