On September 20, an Air Combat Command RQ-4A Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system from the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base crossed the Atlantic with the help of Navy officials. The flight from Patuxent River Naval Air Station to Southwest Asia took 19 hours. Air Force and Navy officials worked side by side in order to save time and resources.
Airman 1st Class Matthew Milles, an avionics specialist, said, “The Navy has all of the supplies that we have, plus contracted support. It's a lot easier than just going to a remote location. Working hand in hand with the Navy moves the plane faster to the deployed location.”
Going east has its own significance and also shows that the Air Force is committed to providing global vigilance, reach and power in the future by exploring new options.
“Going this direction, specifically allows us to cut out a lot of different stops in a lot of different areas,” stated ACC Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Division chief Col. George Zaniewski. “Overall, it gets the aircraft over into the area of responsibility much easier, and more importantly than that, it allows us to work with the Navy, who will be doing more and more in the Global Hawk environment.
“Specifically for the Global Hawk, we are getting more and more into maritime environments, so we are going to be able to work with the Navy much more than we ever have.”
The Global Hawk's trans-Atlantic flight is just the beginning of an increased relationship between the Air Force and the Navy. It is also a step toward the chief of staff's initiative to increase unmanned aircraft system capacity for the joint flight.
Col. Zaniewski added, “What I hope for the future is that it becomes one common way... that we work with all our sister services, to where we can streamline both the acquisition process, but also the operational process.”
Working with another service may not always be easy, but the Patuxent River NAS mission was a win-win for both the Air Force and the Navy.
“There is a bit of a different language, different process, but overall we are still the same airframe,” stated Navy Lt. Cmdr. John Tracey, the Naval Global Hawk project officer. “We are kind of the smaller, kid brother of the Global Hawk community, so it's nice to work with everybody else.”
Source: community.warplanes.com
Skye Lanse is an avid aviation fan who loves to spend her free time reading about aircraft and collecting scale model planes.