U-2 Vs. Global Hawk: Why Drones Aren't The Answer To Every Military Need - Forbes

 

"War is too important to be left to the politicians." You really have to wonder when Strangelove is reality.

 

There is another factor to consider. Both airframes will often fly in "international waters" just offshore using high angle offset photography and other types of reconnaissance. If the "belligerent land owner" under observation becomes aware that some very sensitive information has just been gathered, he might want to take a shot at the offender. There are greater penalties to be paid for shooting down a manned aircraft then for a drone. Besides the U-2 can fly higher and gather more information.

 

U2 vs Global Hawk is like C-17 vs C-130, to say it's an either/or decision is a huge over-simplification. While the two missions have some overlap, there is significant area within each mission set that is exclusive to that aircraft. To lose either is to lose some functionality that the other can't provide, yet the article doesn't cover that at all. The Global Hawk does have significant issues with functionality, but the Navy BAMS shows promise to fix quite a few of those issues.

To maintain the full spectrum of capabilities, the decision is what mix of each versus which one. If there is going to be a either/or decision that is going to be made, the decision needs to be based on the most likely/most critical future role that we want the asset to fill, not which aircraft flies higher, etc. For example, who cares how high an aircraft flies if the decision-makers determine that the most critical requirement is 18+ hour endurance or payload capacity that exceeds X pounds, etc. For that article to have been a true intelligent essay geared towards decision-makers, the majority of time should have been spent discussing whether the majority of the future requirements would be imint vs sigint, permissive vs non-permissive, responsive vs enduring, etc; then the best aircraft that best matched those requirements would be evident.

 

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.

 

gotta wonder how many of these programs (all of them) are force-fed into politician's mouths (F-35 ?) and we end up buying crap we don't need.

 

If you are a lawmaker in a district making F-35 parts, I imagine it's an easy meal to stomach...

 

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.

 

Yes... it is right. It's a platform that flies a very docile 1G profile. And not overly complex, like the C-17. In fact, not very complex at all. There is very little wearing out on them. So, yes, 50 more years is reasonable, even though you scoff at it. If you know something I don't, then let me know.

That may be correct. But you know what? The GH has already been through 2 Nunn-McCurdy breaches. How much more are the US taxpayers going to give to Northrop Grumman before they will consider this turd polished?

Imint versus Sigint? How about both! There is a huge synergy when those work together. The GH has very little SIGINT capability. Yes, they are "working on getting it more"... but as was mentioned, they GH is out of electrical power.
Enduring: remember the NASA Helios UAV test platform? It flew for a long time, and reached almost 100,000'. So would it be a good ISR platform? No, obviously not. And "experts" need to quit getting wrapped up in the whole "it can stay on station for 24 hours". So could the Helios. Or a hot air balloon. Big deal. What "equipment" is going up with it that will let it actually do the ISR mission?

Also remember: if you want to transit across foreign countries, it is much easier in a manned aircraft. Why? Because many nations will not even consider letting a foreign military's unmanned aircraft go through their airspace.

Yes, I'm still associated with the U-2, and am biased.
But I'm also a taxpayer that wants what's best for the country.
There will come a day when the U-2 will not be the best ISR bang for the buck.
But that hasn't happened. The GH cannot do the job near as well as the U-2.

 

Huggy, I wasn't advocating for the GH, I was stating that the article that attempted to appear to be a valid analysis was anything but. And that SI vs IMINT quote above was an analogy - ps, the GH can do both from what I read. My point is that choosing an aircraft based on how high it can fly, etc is sophomoric.

Our USAF acquisition program is more broken than it ever has been in history because our leaders don't know how to do something akin to "effects-based" acquisition. Everyone is platform-centric but they try to give the illusion that they are programming capabilities.

This discussion needs to start with the requirements envisioned over the next XX years. It's from those requirements that capabilities come since that's what the aircraft are designed to. The U-2 and the GH were both designed to (and presumable met) the requirements that were laid out by the acquiring agency at the time; if the GH doesn't meet current intel needs is not the fault of Northrup Grumman, it's the fault of the USAF and SPO. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that, had the requirements been written as such, the GH would be able to carry all of the U-2 payloads and power them.

Additionally, why should the discussion devolve to U-2 vs GH when there are other COAs available? Specific to this conversation, the short-comings could be provided by aircraft or payload improvements. Given the way technology advances, there is no reason to believe that intelligence fidelity couldn't be improved, weight reduced, and power requirements reduced in order to obtain the required capabilities; thus negating the need to acquire an entirely new platform.

That is, if the USAF didn't hamstring the acquisition process. Right now, our acquisition folks have set up the GH to be a package deal; that would be like relying on Lockheed Martin to provide both the U-2 and all of the payloads.

So, in this case it may very well end up that staying with the U-2 may be the better choice, but that's more due to poorly written requirements and poorly designed acquisition programs that limit flexibility in favor of proprietary programs. While that may be good for folks who have an affinity for the U-2, it's bad for our future intelligence capabilities and the warfighters that will utilize that information.