The Air Force has agreed to give NASA a third Global Hawk air vehicle for the civil agency’s high-altitude environmental science research efforts, Ed Walby, Northrop Grumman’s director of business development for high-altitude, long-endurance systems, said Thursday at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando. Northrop builds the Global Hawk. Like the first two Global Hawks supplied to NASA, the third aircraft is from among USAF’s tranche of prototype air vehicles built during the Global Hawk advanced concept technology demonstration, said Walby. NASA’s third aircraft will be ACTD #7, the final prototype aircraft manufactured; it resembles most closely the Global Hawk production model, he said. Already NASA has ACTD #1 and ACTD #6. NASA rolled out the first of its two converted Global Hawks last month. Walby offered no timeline on the transfer.
The U.S., South Korea, and Japan flew an unusual trilateral flight with two U.S. B-52H Stratofortress bombers escorted by two Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-2s, and two ROK Air Force KF-16 fighters—both countries’ respective variants of the F-16—July 11. That same weekend, the top military officers of the three nations…