Global Hawk Hits 5K:
An Air Force’s RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle recently surpassed the 5,000 combat flying hour mark while flying a mission in the global war on terror, says Northrop Grumman. The UAV began flying combat missions in 2001, accumulating more than 233 missions to its credit. A single RQ-4 has flown 157 of those sorties.
The Air Force is launching an effort to develop a new stand-off missile with a range of 1,000 nautical miles, or 1,150 miles, that would eventually be used for both air-to-air and air-to-surface missions.