Testers Find Limitations For Global Hawk reports Aviation Week
By Amy Butler, Aviation Week
U.S. Air Force testers say the Global Hawk Block 20/30 unmanned aerial system (UAS) is unable to completely and reliably perform the high-altitude imagery and signals intelligence collection missions for which it is designed.
Maj. Gen. David Eichorn, who heads the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center in New Mexico, says he found the system to be “effective with significant limitations … not suitable and partially mission capable” in the Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) report he approved May 20.
Eichorn acknowledges this is an unusual finding. Typically, systems are considered effective or not effective. “I was much more comfortable with the shade of gray in this case rather than the black and white of is it effective or not,” he tells Aviation Week in a June 3 interview. “This provides a valuable service to our nation, and to the allies … I felt more comfortable calling it effective because it does do some things well. But it has got a ways to go to being all that we want it to be.”
