JB Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii Three RQ-4 Global Hawk remotely piloted aircraft assigned to Andersen AFB, Guam, will once again deploy to Misawa AB, Japan, to escape the summer storm season, Brig. Gen. Jeffrey McDaniels, director of air and cyberspace operations told Air Force Magazine during a recent visit to Pacific Air Forces headquarters here. “Guam is a good place to house them. It works good for 2/3 of the year, but then 1/3 of the year they have a lot of tropical weather come through and it prevents [the Global Hawks] from circumnavigating the whole area we’d like them to go look at,” said McDaniels. Last summer, two RQ-4s deployed to Misawa for about six months and were able to “more than double” the sortie efficiency, said McDaniels. This time, PACAF is sending one additional aircraft—a mix of Block 30s and Block 40s—and will keep the aircraft “there a little bit longer,” he added. “We worked for awhile with the Japanese on specifics of moving another aircraft there. There are specifics that come with RPAs, such as radio frequency and spectrum to control it. They were welcome hosts for it,” he adding, noting the deployment also gives Japan, which plans to procure its own RQ-4s, a chance to learn from the US.
Anduril and General Atomics will develop their Collaborative Combat Aircraft for the Air Force, beating out Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, the service announced on April 24. But any of the non-selected companies can compete to actually manufacture the eventual design, the Air Force said.