I finally got to see a Global Hawk for the very first time today up close and personal. I had not realized just how big it is, the fuselage has to be twice that of the F/A-18F, they had parked nearby. When I saw it coming through the gates all I could say was “My God, it’s massive”. I have seen the Predator at Hollowman and was shocked at it’s size, but the RQ-4 blew it out of the water. They also had an X-45 parked next to it, and it was equally impressive as well, It appears to bigger than an F-117. Just doesn’t look as tall without the verticle stabs. The F/A-18F they had there was really cool looking too, they had a gloss finished Navy Working Uniform “Aquaflage” paint scheme on it, with gold lettering, really cool. I’d like to see Two Bobs or some one do the dacals for it in 1/48 !
If I understand correctly, the Global Hawk’s forte is long range and/or long loitering time (almost two days). That would account for the large size and long wingspan.
What is really amazing is the Air Force experimenting with aerial refueling (from another UAV), for a total flight time of like 120 hours. That’s is basically take off Monday morning and land on Friday evening.
After looking through my near 1000 photos from this past weekends US Navy Centennial of Aviation Airshow, my previous post about the X-45 was wrong. It was actually the X-47B. Looking further at the aircraft I noticed the presence of a launch bar, and very beefy landing gear. I guess the Navy intends on using these aboard carriers. This is rather exciting thinking about how a flight deck crew would behave around this aircraft at the catapult. No thumbs up, no salute, will the shooter still crouch and point, and who’s hand will the plane captain shake before lighting up ? This whole UAV era is ushering in so fast I can barely keep up.
I guess they’ll set up an LCD panel on the flight deck so the pilot can salute back. [:D] Remember, the pilot will be able to see the ground crew, just no way for them to see the pilot, at least for now.
Gene Beaird,
Pearland, Texas
I think the LCD screen would increase some of the aircrafts radar cross-section…LoL
Actually, they could do all that with lights on the side of the aircraft. Sort of like a staging tree on a drag strip.