You know how it is.
The hobby shops up prices
to the Men In Black . . .
Posted on 07/18/2005 1:45:40 PM PDT by BenLurkin
PALMDALE - Production will be ramping up at Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Palmdale manufacturing facility as the result of a $272 million contract for four additional Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance aircraft and their associated ground systems. The Air Force contract is for the new "B" model of Global Hawk, a larger version capable of carrying greater payloads and more sensor equipment than the first version, Northrop Grumman spokeswoman Revelle Anderson said.
Global Hawk is a high-altitude, long-endurance, unmanned aerial reconnaissance system designed to provide military field commanders with high-resolution, near-real-time imagery of large geographic areas.
It is designed to fly to 65,000 feet with a range of 14,000 miles and a flight endurance of 40 hours.
The larger version is in response to the Air Force's requirement to collect more images, radar and other surveillance information at one time, providing valuable knowledge to the warfighters on the ground, "give them an idea of what may be over the hill," Anderson said.
It is capable of carrying about 1,000 pounds in payload more than before, giving more capacity for additional sensor equipment.
Even carrying additional payload weight, the new design continues to offer the same endurance of 24 hours continuous flight over the target area, in addition to the time it takes to travel there from its launch point, Anderson said.
Four of these new models are already in production at the company's Air Force Plant 42 site. The first is expected to roll off the assembly line in summer 2007.
The new production contract means the company's workforce will likely increase by about 15 to 20 workers, Anderson said.
When the new hiring will take place is not yet known, however.
The Global Hawk fleet of 15 demonstrator and production aircraft recently hit the 7,000-flight hour mark.
More than 4,300 hours of that flight time occurred in duty over war zones, using vehicles that were originally intended for test purposes.
"The use of the advanced-concept technology demonstration vehicles to support the global war on terrorism has proven the durability of the Global Hawk system and its ability to meet warfighters' needs for critical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data," said George Guerra, Northrop Grumman's Air Force Global Hawk program manager.
Knowledge gained in actual use over war zones was put to use into the production model and in designing the "B" model.
In three separate deployments overseas, six prototype Global Hawks successfully completed more than 200 missions.
Two production-version vehicles are expected to be ready for their own deployments at the end of the summer.
agatlin@avpress.com
Wow. $26,000,000 a copy.
You know how it is.
The hobby shops up prices
to the Men In Black . . .
Put a couple AGM-114B/K/M Hellfire Missile's missles on it!
Launch Weight: 98 to 107 pounds
Hey, without ammo, the CIA (err, airforce) is just another expensive flight club.
I don't know. Are Hellfires effective if launched from 70,000+ feet?
:-)
Here's a pic of the Global Hawk.
The Longbow Hellfire 2 missile is expected to have the same range capability as AGM-114F, with a minimum range of 500 m and maximum range of 9 km.
Well, not 70,000 feet but it could lower altitude then fire. If not they could always go with JDAM GBU-29 250-lb MK-81.
The Global Hawk system has been EXTRAORDINARILY effective in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Those in the know agree that we can't get more of them fast enough. Is airborne recce technology expensive? I suppose, but I recommend you ask the grunts who were facing some mechanized bad guys in a sand storm during the run down to Baghdad in the spring of '03. Ask THEM how much it was worth to be able to cream those toads because we knew where they were when they thought we were blind. Trust your troops. The GH (and other systems) can tell them things the enemy doesn't want us to know--24/7, with or without a sky full of sand.
That is odd.
Odd? How so? Tanks are purchased in mass quantities and built on assembly lines; the M1A1's design has been effectively fixed for a decade. Aircraft like the GH are virtually hand-made in ones and twos, and their sensors are a working definition of the term "state of the art." Tanks can do good work, but only when they know where to shoot...systems like GH are force multipliers that can make a regiment of M1s worth a division of T-72s.
Both are expensive, high-end aircraft - why does the disposable UAV cost more than the manned system?
The Global Hawk is decidely NOT a disposable system; it's meant to have a flying hour lifespan similar to comparable manned high-altitude recce systems, e.g. the U-2. And keep in mind that its pricetag also includes a chem warfare-hardened ground control station van and intrusion-safed data/comm link antenna suite.
BS - they are controlled in shifts, from {CENSORED}, as part of the national RECCE plan. The rest is smoke and mirrors.
If you can sell them to DoD for $25mil, keep the profit.
Hanging any ordnance on the GH would require redesign, not only on the wings, but avionics, control systems, possibly landing gear, etc. That would add a nice chunk of change to each airframe.
yea, maybe they should of thought about that beforehand. Just would be nice if it had at least 1 JDAMN that it could use if a target presented itself. SAY UBL...
Worth every penney!
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