Posted on 02/18/2010 11:51:44 PM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
One of the largest unmanned aerial systems operating in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, the RQ-4 Global Hawk, surpassed 30,000 combat flying hours and 1,500 combat sorties Feb. 10 here.
The Global Hawks are assigned to the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing from Beale Air Force Base, Calif. They provide a broad spectrum of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance collection capability to support joint combatant forces in worldwide peacetime, contingency and wartime operations.
The 380th AEW Global Hawks reached their 1,500th combat sortie on Feb. 10.
The historic sortie and flying hour mark nearly coincided, said Capt. Michelle Campbell, the lead aircraft maintenance officer for the 380th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron's Hawk aircraft maintenance unit.
"When our 1,500th combat sortie completed we were at 29999.4 hours," Captain Campbell said. "On our very next sortie the next night (Feb. 11), as soon as the (Global) Hawk cleared the airfield, that's when we reached 30,000."
The RQ-4 arrived to this deployed location in October 2001, shortly after the events of Sept .11, 2001, said Senior Master Sgt. Timothy Green, the 380th EAMXS Hawk AMU superintendent.
"The aircraft has been a constant presence here since then providing high altitude-long endurance ISR to the combatant commander," Sergeant Green said. "The significance of 30,000 combat hours and 1,500 flights is high. This began as a test platform and was never intended to fly that many sorties or hours. Because of the capability the RQ-4 brought, it has been able to pave the way for a future generation of RQ-4s and has driven the overall (UAS) programs to even greater heights than expected."
(Excerpt) Read more at defpro.com ...
Remember back when the Air Force dissed UCAVs?! Those were some funny days...
Those were the days
20hrs per flight if I’m not mistaken. That’s some serious loitering.
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