Moseley said he has no doubt the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle—which, he termed worth “its weight in gold”—will probably begin replacing some of the older manned systems like the U-2. “We can walk away from some of the older systems, and we can maintain much more persistence with these unmanned systems,” he explained. The Air Force can configure Global Hawk for a host of capabilities, and keep the aircraft airborne “days at a time.” Fighter pilot Moseley said he’s a “big fan” of UAVs, especially when you can hook imaging technology and Hellfire missiles to them.
The Air Force wants to pump more than $12 billion over the next five years into its new affordable long-range missiles program and recently asked industry to push the flights of some of those munitions beyond 1,200 miles.