Originally Posted by
JamesNoBrakes
And 50 years of "life" left on the airframes? Yeah right. You can have anything though if you are willing to shell out the money. I'm sure they could make them last 50 more years, but doing so would likely take way more money than is reasonable and practical.
Probably not an issue in this case...it's an old and robust design but the current inventory was actually built in the 80s so 50 years sounds reasonable without extensive SLEPs.
The bottom line is that global hawk has serious operational limitations to go with its enhanced capabilities. You'd prefer to keep both airplanes but if you had to pick one it would be the U2...otherwise you give up too much capability just so you can say you have cool drones.