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New Global Hawks Flying
The first of a new batch of Global Hawks has taken to the air.
While the original demonstration version of the high-altitude endurance drone is busy racking up flight hours in the Middle East in support of U.S. operations there, Northrop Grumman has logged the first flight of the AF-3, the first aircraft built under the second lot of low-rate production. The four-hour mission took the aircraft from the company's Palmdale, Calif., facility to the military's flight-test center at Edwards AFB, Calif.
The production batch includes aircraft for the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy.
Global Hawk has amassed more than 4,000 flying hours, about half flying from the United Arab Emirates as part of U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years.
The Global Hawks are still in the smaller RQ-4A configuration, which the Pentagon is moving away from. Production of the first of the larger RQ-4Bs is slated to commence this month. The first three of those, which boost payload capability by 50% and feature an expanded wingspan and longer fuselage, are to be delivered in 2006. The Pentagon is buying them as the third lot of low-rate production.
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