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One of the US Navy’s MQ-4C Triton high altitude long endurance (HALE) reconnaissance drones was spotted entering the South China Sea on Wednesday – the latest addition to an increasingly long list of US spy planes plying the waterway in recent months. The unmanned aerial vehicle was spotted entering the northern end of the South China Sea via the Bashi Channel on Wednesday, where it seemed to zero-in on some object of interest before departing the region. ​Sputnik reported in January on the stationing of the US Navy’s first two MQ-4C Tritons on Guam, at the far side of the...

Iran’s navy chief warned the United States on Monday that Iranian forces could shoot down more surveillance drones if they violate the country’s airspace, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Saudi Arabia for talks with Arab allies in the Persian Gulf. “The enemy dispatched its most sophisticated . . . and most complicated surveillance aircraft” to spy on Iran, and “everyone saw the downing of the drone,” Rear Adm. Hossein Khanzadi said Monday, referring to the U.S. Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk drone shot down by Iran last week. The incident capped a week of tensions following attacks on two commercial...

The U.S. military will deploy long-range Global Hawk surveillance drones from Japan next year, U.S. and Japanese officials announced Thursday, marking the first time the Pentagon has been able to secure basing rights for the advanced unmanned aircraft in that region. Besides flying missions over North Korea, the Global Hawks would presumably give the United States and Japan better information about the movements of Chinese ships in the vicinity of the Senkakus. In addition to the Global Hawks, U.S. and Japanese officials announced that the Pentagon would deploy new U.S. Navy P-8 maritime surveillance patrol aircraft to Japan, starting in...

Members of Congress on 6 March harshly criticised the US Air Force's decision to place its recently acquired fleet of Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk Block 30 unmanned high altitude reconnaissance aircraft into storage. The air force has 14 aircraft in service, while four more are being built by Northrop. All 18 would be retired in the fiscal year 2013 budget proposal. Among the most vocal critics was Congressman Norman Dicks, but almost every member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee present voiced their dismay at the perceived waste of taxpayer dollars. Testifying before the committee, USAF chief of staff...

In-flight electrical failure caused a Northrop Grumman EQ-4 to crash in Afghanistan on 20 August, says a newly-released accident investigation report. The aircraft crashed approximately 195km (120 miles) northwest of Kandahar. Specificlly, an electrical connector to an unidentified line replacement unit partially separated. This caused electrical damage inside the LRU, which cut power to the actuators that controlled ailerons and spoilers. Within 1min of the power failure, the aircraft lost control after hitting minor turbulence. "The Board President also found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that LRU installation methods were a contributing factor in the mishap," continues the report....

Buried in a long list of Pentagon budget proposals for the next five years is the Air Force’s recommendation to retire a fleet of 18 brand-new Global Hawk Block 30 unmanned surveillance aircraft. Four of them haven’t even been delivered yet, and are already destined for the boneyard. Air Force leaders have defended their decision, contending that the $67 million apiece Global Hawk has become too pricey, and that the Cold War era U-2 spy aircraft can still do the job. Further, they insist that axing the Block 30 version of the Global Hawk hardly means the end of the...

The draft of the federal budget for 2013 pulls back the throttle on the rival Global Hawk program. An Air Force general says the U-2, a design that dates to the 1950s, is "the stronger system." Score one for old-school aircraft against the upstart drones. Perhaps it's just a brief respite from the seemingly inevitable winds of change propelling unmanned aircraft ever higher in the Pentagon's airpower depth charts, but the venerable U-2 spy plane has won a key vote of confidence over the unmanned RQ-4 Global Hawk. That victory came not in a head-to-head aerial dogfight, but in a...

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...

Exclusive: Obama moves to sell Northrop drones to South Korea Wed, Aug 31 2011 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration has begun consulting Congress on plans to sell remotely piloted Global Hawk surveillance planes to South Korea, which came close to all-out war with North Korea last year, two people familiar with the matter said. Among those briefed have been the Senate's and House of Representatives' foreign affairs committees, which have jurisdiction over arms sales, the people familiar with the matter said. There was no immediate word on when formal notification of a proposed sale might take place, nor on...

PICTURE: China's Global Hawk counterpart breaks cover By Greg Waldron China appears ready to reveal another of its developmental military aircraft, with new images having emerged showing what appears to be a high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned air vehicle. Posted on the China Defense Mashup website, the aircraft was photographed at Chengdu airfield, where the J-20 stealth fighter also emerged late last year, shortly before making its surprise flight debut from the site in January. China Defense Mashup speculates that the newly-spotted vehicle is the Xianglong: an intended counterpart to the USA’s Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk.

Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk Above we have a Global Hawk UAV that has just returned from Iraq in one nonstop flight, rather than packed and transported via C-5/C-17 cargo, as would normally be the case. Do note the mission paintings on the fuselage- looks like 250+, they're really working these things, and drones are here to stay. This super-snooper can stay up for 36 hrs while operating above 60,000 feet, fulfilling the prior high-altitude surveillance role of the legendary, manned U-2. The Global Hawk is controlled via satellite by a flight-control center team in California's Mohave desert, who enjoy the...

South Korea To Buy Global Hawk Mar 11, 2011 By Robert Wall, Amy Butler The U.S. and South Korea have reached a handshake agreement for the sale of the Global Hawk unmanned surveillance aircraft, according to program sources. The sale, which could take place as soon as this year, will include four of the high-flying UAVs. Though the Global Hawk is designed to carry a variety of payloads, including imagery sensors, radars and signals intelligence collectors, South Korea has been approved for the Block 30I version, which includes an electro-optical/infrared system. Seoul eventually would like a signals intelligence capability; but...

Chinese Hackers Access Korea's Global Hawk Purchase Plans Chinese hackers gained access to the government's top-secret plan to buy the U.S.-made Global Hawk reconnaissance drone in June 2010, it emerged Sunday. "We've had a report from a government official that China launched a hacking attack on the Defense Ministry's computer system and accessed confidential information about the ministry's plan" to buy the drone, a spokesman for Democratic Party lawmaker Shin Hak-yong of the National Assembly's Defense Committee said. "The government hasn't raised this issue with China yet and is apparently still mulling how to handle it." Seoul asked Washington to...

Call it China’s ‘Christmas surprise.’ In a series of grainy photos given a pass by government Internet censors starting December 25, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force unveiled the country’s first stealth fighter prototype, the Chengdu J-20. For alarmists, the Pacific balance of power seemed to shift in an instant. Armed with hundreds of fast, elusive J-20s in coming years, the PLAAF could dominate the South China Sea, reaffirming China’s rise as a global power and elbowing aside less audacious, tech-savvy rivals. ‘(The) Asia-Pacific’s political landscape will be changed as China’s military capability can win over countries in this region,’...

An RQ-4 Global Hawk completed a 32-hour flight test using an alternative fuel mixture, Nov. 23. The 412th Test Wing's Global Vigilance Combined Test Force's Block 20 Global Hawk took off at 4:30 p.m. Nov. 22 and became the first remotely piloted aircraft to fly using the Fischer-Tropsch Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene fuel and regular JP-8 jet fuel blend. The Fischer-Tropsch process is a set of chemical reactions that converts carbon-based materials into liquid hydrocarbons. Typically utilizing coal, natural gas, or biomass as a feedstock, the resulting synthetic liquid is utilized as a petroleum substitute. "The RQ-4 Global Hawk aircraft is...

More questions than answers are arising from the U.S. Navy/Air Force memorandum of agreement to coordinate efforts on their respective high-altitude reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Signed June 12 by the services’ chiefs of staffs, the agreement aims to produce operational and financial efficiencies in the Air Force Global Hawk and Navy Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) programs, both of which are in development, though the USAF Global Hawk has a head start of many years on its younger cousin. Shared basing, maintenance, command and control, training, logistics and data exploitation are areas that could be ripe for efficiencies, says...

The U.S. Navy has extended by one year the time its first high-altitude drone will monitor oil shipments and other maritime activity in the Persian Gulf region, according to officials. Northrop Grumman Corp. built the plane, a demonstration version of its Global Hawk that's used by the Air Force, as the first model in a $9 billion Navy program for 68 unmanned planes to provide reconnaissance in five areas of the world. The aircraft has been flying over the Gulf region since February 2009 and was slated to end its patrols this year to undergo additional stateside testing and development....

More questions than answers seem to be arising from the U.S. Navy/Air Force Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) for “coordination of synergy” efforts on their respective high-altitude reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Signed June 12 by the services’ chiefs of staff, the goal is to produce operational and financial efficiencies in the Global Hawk and Broad Area Maritime Surveillance programs, both of which are in development (though the USAF Global Hawk has had the advantage of a head start of several years on its younger cousin). Shared basing, maintenance, command and control, training, logistics and data exploitation are areas that could...

There is a wrinkle to Northrop Grumman's plans to demonstrate the autonomous aerial refuelling of one Global Hawk by another at high altitude - the tanker will fly behind the receiver. The tanker will be equipped with a refuelling probe and the receiver with a hose-drum unit - the opposite of the normal probe-and-drogue arrangement - and it is the tanker that will rendezvous with the receiver, maneuver into contact with the basket and "push" fuel forward to the receiver. Northrop says this "reverse" refueling arrangement reduces the cost of equipping a Global Hawk fleet for aerial refueling because fewer...

The Euro Hawk unmanned aircraft system (UAS), built by Northrop Grumman Corporation and EADS Defence & Security, successfully completed its first flight June 29. The high-flying aircraft took off at approximately 10:32 a.m. PDT from Northrop Grumman's Palmdale, Calif., manufacturing facility and climbed to 32,000 feet over Palmdale's desert skies before landing nearly two hours later at 12:24 p.m. PDT at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. "The Euro Hawk marks the first international configuration of the RQ-4 Global Hawk high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) UAS, and strengthens Northrop Grumman's first trans-Atlantic cooperation with Germany and EADS Defence & Security," said Duke Dufresne,...