US Navy considers Global Hawk deployment

US Navy leaders are considering proposals to deploy two Northrop Grumman RQ-4A Global Hawk unmanned air vehicles originally purchased only to perform high-altitude surveillance demonstrations. The manufacturer says the Global Hawk’s impressive showing in the two-week Trident Warrior ’05 exercise, which concluded in early December, and pressing operational needs have helped to remove lingering doubts about the vehicle’s utility.

“The naysayers were saying they didn’t think the [USN’s maritime mode] radar was going to work and you couldn’t do surveillance from 60,000ft [18,300m],” says Tom Twomey, Northrop’s Global Hawk maritime demonstration business development manager. “The last two weeks have been a huge success story. We saw that not only does it work, it works really darn good.”