Euro Hawk Update

Le Bourget, France—The first Euro Hawk variant of the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk, built for Germany, will be ferried to Europe in the next few weeks, said company officials here at the Paris Air Show. The aircraft has been in flight test at Edwards AFB, Calif., and has demonstrated more than 30 hours of endurance and flight to 60,000 feet of altitude, they said. This Euro Hawk will go to Manching, Germany, for integration with its subsystems, provided by EADS; Northrop builds the “green” airframe itself in Palmdale, Calif. Germany will eventually acquire five Euro Hawks and operate them out of Schleswig-Jagel Air Base, which abuts the North Sea and Baltic Sea. A Northrop executive said Germany wants them there to be able to train over water and because the aircraft can easily reach their operational orbits from there. As the US Air Force is doing with the FAA, Germany is working on integrating the Euro Hawk into the civil air traffic regime in Europe. Pilots of Euro Hawk are training at USAF’s own Global Hawk schoolhouse at Beale AFB, Calif.