Bye Bye Global Hawk
Global Hawk getting the boot
Well, the writing has been on the wall for awhile now. Good news for the U-2 bubbas? At least they'll be gainfully employed for a LONG time now :D |
I don't know anything about what it costs to fly a U-2, but I am both surprised and pleased that it costs less to operate than a Global Hawk. I'll echo WAFP's sentiment that this is hopefully good for the Dragon Lady pilots.
Just seems a littler counter-intuitive that a 40 year old manned spy plane costs less to operate than a modern UAV. :confused: |
The USAF has acknowledged that about 25% of Global Hawks have crashed. Makes you wonder if there are more.
According to what I found on the web, including R&D, each GH cost $218 million! The GAO found it had an accident rate 100 times the F-16 in a combat-zone. :eek: (Northrop said it was unfair to compare a mature system with a new one). :cool: Preds and Reapers have similar loss rates (70 lost), but are much cheaper ($10 million), so the USAF can justify it. |
Originally Posted by UAL T38 Phlyer
(Post 1122320)
The USAF has acknowledged that about 25% of Global Hawks have crashed. Makes you wonder if there are more.
According to what I found on the web, including R&D, each GH cost $218 million! The GAO found it had an accident rate 100 times the F-16 in a combat-zone. :eek: |
From the linked article:
"Officials say that while Air Force Block 30 version is being cut, the Navy’s variant could be used by the Air Force. " Meaning the AF will still fly them and have them, it'll just be a different version. |
Originally Posted by AZFlyer
(Post 1122316)
Just seems a littler counter-intuitive that a 40 year old manned spy plane costs less to operate than a modern UAV. :confused:
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Originally Posted by WAFP
(Post 1122331)
curious as to where you got the stats...
I had read something about this a couple of years ago in AW&ST; so I checked Wiki to see if I was still in the ballpark. |
If you guys have SIPR access go to Beales website, the 9th RSS has some really good briefs on there wrt to capes and lims of both the U-2 and Global Hawk. Bottom line, it was still a long LONG way from ever competing with the U-2 for capability. Even several in the air at once.
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Meanwhile, on the home front...
Feds hide data on domestic use of drones — RT |
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