Posted on 01/24/2012 6:18:34 PM PST by Jet Jaguar
The U.S. Air Force has decided to scrap its Northrop Grumman Corp high-altitude unmanned surveillance plane program and keep its Cold War-vintage U-2 spy planes flying into the 2020s, according to a government official and a defense analyst.
Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Virginia-based Lexington Institute, said the Air Force decision was based on the cost of the RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned planes, and said the service would investigate using a marine version with different sensors that Northrop is developing for the Navy.
The Navy is proceeding with its plans to buy 68 of that version of the plane, known as Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS), a source familiar with Navy plans told Reuters.
Officials have said they are pleased with progress on the Navy's unmanned plane, and a demonstration model has been used in recent weeks to monitor the Straits of Hormuz, after Iran threatened to block the world's most important oil export route.
Northrop's Global Hawk, which has been used for spy missions over Iraq, Afghanistan and most recently Libya, is one of dozens of arms programs facing cancellation or cutbacks in the Pentagon's fiscal 2013 budget and five-year plan.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Ping
More sabotage at work.
This is what happens when your President ceases being an American and starts being a “citizen of the world”.
So why did they retire the SR71?
The list, Ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
I thought McNutt killed the Blackbird in favor of Keyholes, not the Aardvark.
They’ve been building U2s for many years. The ones flying today were built as recently as 1989.
Despite my life long admiration of Luke, von Richthofen, Guynemer, Bishop et al., unmanned combat aircraft are the future of aviation.
We are losing the future, on this and so many other fronts.
Are the KH-12 & Lacrosse sats the current units?
Well, somrthing needs to scout ahead of the B-52s.
I don't see the logic in this one. A big part of the budget, bigger than the high tech toys, is mundane things like salaries and fuel. Having unmanned vehicles should be able to cut down on both.
U2 maiden flight 1 August 1955
C-130 maiden flight 23 August 1954 !!!
Both Lockheed aircraft!
I have read that the U-2 is an EXTREMELY difficult and dangerous plane to fly. Certainly, an unmanned plane would do a lot of things better. So, I don’t get it. Pilots (and their training) are REALLY expensive.
The SR-71 was extremely expensive to fly, but it was built in an era where money was no object because there was no alternative, and what it provided was priceless, especially then. I doubt if there is anything in terms of surveillance that satellites couldn’t do now better and cheaper. Still, the SR-71 may remain the pinnacle of American aerospace and mechanical engineering, when “absolutely impossible” was merely difficult and expensive.
/johnny
Actually they’re now TR-1s, but yes, newer air frames. Question is what sensors will they use?
We certainly cannot have any new technology to replace the unmanned drones. That would screw up Obama's plans to put those same drones in the hands of our enemies.
With the Iranians working on the sample Obama gave them, why would he want any new platform put in place?
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