,
WASHINGTON: The new version of Northrop Grumman Corp.'s RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned surveillance plane will make its first flight sometime early in 2007 after completing up to 40 taxi tests, the company said on Monday.
Two earlier Global Hawks have logged over 350 hours conducting surveillance at high altitudes over Iraq and Afghanistan, collecting more than 4,800 images and helping U.S. troops find more than 50 surface-to-air missile sites.
The updated, larger Block 20 Global Hawks will feature electric brakes, a longer wingspan, and an open systems architecture that will allow quick switching of sensors, said Ed Walby, business development director for the plane.
Walby said two older Global Hawk Block 10 aircraft at Beale Air Force Base in California were suspended from flying last month after one of the planes briefly lost contact with its ground-based pilot during its first training exercise.
That raised concerns about the unmanned vehicles flying at low altitudes where commercial airplanes fly and prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to review procedures for flights at the base, about 30 miles north of Sacramento.
Air Combat Command and the FAA were expected to finish work on new procedures early next month, which would allow training flights to resume, Walby told Reuters in a telephone interview.
“The aircraft are not grounded. There's a procedural problem at Beale. There's nothing technically wrong, there's nothing mechanically wrong,” Walby said.
Defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute research group said Global Hawk's main problem was its rising costs, but he said it was still cheaper to buy the high-altitude surveillance plane than launch a new satellite.
The program is due to cost $9.49 billion, 18 percent more than initially expected, but Walby said the increase resulted from the Pentagon adding requirements to the newer planes.
Overall, he said, the program was doing well and had been on cost and on schedule for the past 18 months.
The Air Force plans to buy 54 Global Hawks in all, including seven of the Block 20 planes.
He said the program was working so well that the Department of Homeland Security was considering using the airplane's Air Force training flights to help keep tabs on U.S. borders.
“That would save money and also provide very realistic training for the pilots and the sensor operators,” he said.
Germany was expected to sign a contract to buy Global Hawks in early January, while Singapore, South Korea and Japan have also expressed interest in the surveillance system.
Australia is also interested, but will make its decision based on the Navy's Broad Area Maritime Surveillance contract, in which Northrop is also bidding the Global Hawk.
In the incident at Beale Air Force Base, the plane lost contact with its pilot for 30 seconds because it was directly over the control tower's antenna at the base as it spiraled lower to land without flying over nonmilitary properties.
Similar landing procedures are used by U2 spy planes, which are also based at Beale, Walby said.
When Global Hawk loses its link, the plane is programmed to return to its previous position, in this case a higher altitude of around 20,000 feet, while waiting to reconnect.
In this case, the connection came back within 20 seconds and the plane was able to land as scheduled. To avoid future problems, the Air Force and FAA may extend the 30-second period before the plane reverts to its last heading, Walby said.
