Military Is Sold on Unmanned Spy Plane

Resembling a large, ungainly bird with stick-like wings and a lumpy head, Northrop Grumman Corp.’s Global Hawk doesn’t much look like America’s newest super-sophisticated spy plane.

But recently the plane took off from Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, flew along the Eastern Seaboard and then crisscrossed the Atlantic Ocean before returning to Eglin, all the while taking hundreds of detailed photographic images that could distinguish vehicle tire tracks from 65,000 feet.

The 29-hour nonstop test flight to Portugal not only set an endurance record and showcased state-of-the-art spy technology, it also accomplished a more critical feat: The plane flew without a pilot.

The unmanned aerial vehicle--UAV for short--is America’s latest entry in the spy business, one that many believe will dramatically reshape the way military intelligence is gathered. It also may portend the end of the venerable U-2 manned reconnaissance plane.

“It’s cutting-edge stuff,” said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Arlington, Va.-based Lexington Institute. “Air Force analysis is that this is a pretty exciting system, based on initial tests. They are beginning to dream up all sorts of applications for it.”

If successful, the Global Hawk would represent a strong exception to the long history of costly failure and technological embarrassment associated with pilotless aircraft, which have been prone to crashes and uncontrolled costs.

In addition to its ability to fly higher and stay in the air longer than any aircraft without refueling--up to 35 hours compared with 10 hours for the U-2--it eliminates the need to expose a pilot to the dangers of flying over enemy territory, its supporters say.

With Global Hawk, there would be no danger of repeating the embarrassing May 1, 1960, incident in which the Soviet Union shot down a U-2 plane and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, escalating Cold War tensions.

Global Hawk’s entire mission to Portugal was programmed on a laptop computer and then downloaded to the plane’s main controls, which guided its takeoff, flight and landing. During the flight, the plane took detailed radar and infrared images and transmitted them via satellite to Ft. Bragg, N.C., a U.S. Army base, and to the crew of the aircraft carrier George Washington in the Atlantic Ocean.

The plane, which is assembled in Palmdale, is still undergoing flight tests at Edwards Air Force Base, but so far its performance has exceeded expectations, according to military officials and industry analysts. The program extends Southern California’s dominance over the last 50 years in the building of Air Force reconnaissance planes.

According to the Congressional Research Service, each plane costs about $51 million, taking into account development costs and the small numbers that have been made so far. But the price tag should drop to about $20 million once full-scale production begins on the Air Force’s proposal for purchasing 66 planes. (The U-2s cost about $52 million each.)

Northrop sees jobs increasing 50% to about 1,000 for its unmanned aircraft business by this summer. The program also represents a boon for a number of other local aerospace companies, including Raytheon Co.’s El Segundo unit, which makes the sensors, and Litton Industries’ navigation equipment operations in Woodland Hills.

“We have to get Global Hawk on line,” said Gen. Michael E. Ryan, chief of staff of the Air Force. “We will come down on the U-2, and I think it will be replaced by the unmanned aerial vehicle. When that occurs will depend on how rapidly we can get Global Hawk to a usable, trustworthy platform.”

Still, the possibility of Global Hawk replacing the 45-year-old U-2 is raising significant rancor among the influential community of aviators, some of whom argue that a pilot is irreplaceable.

For one thing, pilots can quickly change their mission and fly to a new target or take action to avoid antiaircraft missiles. Also, pilots can overcome enemy efforts to electronically jam an airplane’s computerized controls or derail its reconnaissance capabilities.

Last week, the argument appears to have in part swayed Deputy Defense Secretary Rudy de Leon to scuttle Air Force’s request to add $1 billion over the next five years to speed up production of the aircraft. De Leon cited budget constraints but he was also troubled by lack of consensus among some commanders who advocated a cautious approach to the plane’s development.

“There is a lot of fear among pilots that this is another step in the direction of them becoming obsolete,” defense analyst Thompson said.

Northrop officials counter that, with a ground-based operator monitoring the flight, Global Hawk’s mission could easily be altered. The ground operator could also take control of the plane if evasive action became necessary. The plane is equipped with a device that can detect enemy radar and deploy several towed decoys to divert high-altitude missiles fired from an enemy fighter flying below or from ground launchers.

Global Hawk developers also say that specially designed encryption programs would prevent adversaries from severing communications between the operator and the aircraft.

“You have the same flexibility,” said Gary S. Martin, director of development, testing and evaluation for the Air Force. “We can change everything on the fly.”

Both sides agree that some kind of airborne military reconnaissance is needed despite growing reliance on spy satellites. Orbiting satellites cannot hover over a target, and their scheduled routes are detectable. The Iraqi army, for instance, surreptitiously built bunkers by timing construction activity to avoid scheduled passes overhead by spy satellites.

Reconnaissance planes, however, can fly to a target at any time and stay aloft over the area for hours. As such, the U-2 was a breakthrough for military intelligence. But the plane, which first took flight in 1955, is beginning to feel the strain of its age.

A recent assessment by the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan research agency for Congress, noted that the hardships involved in flying U-2s “may contribute to significant [pilot] retention problems that could affect overall capabilities.”

The December report said there are only 50 pilots qualified to fly the U-2, which is notoriously difficult to handle. The plane is called the “Dragon Lady” because of its unforgiving handling characteristics at high altitude. Significant training is required to help pilots ward off profuse sweating, fatigue and dizziness caused by 10-hour missions in pressure suits like those worn by astronauts.

The Air Force already has retired one U-2 successor, the high-speed SR-71, which flew at three times the speed of sound. The plane was deemed too costly to operate and no longer needed in the post-Cold War period. Many more U-2s were built, the most recent a batch of planes produced in the 1980s in Burbank.

Still, the report said that although Global Hawk “appears to offer some advantages over the U-2,” it does not currently match the U-2’s intelligence-gathering capabilities. The U-2 can carry double the payload--radar, sensors and other reconnaissance equipment--of the Global Hawk.

Air Force officials say their goal is to quickly get Global Hawk’s capabilities up to par with that of the latest U-2 by pushing for funding to develop new sensor technologies. One advantage of the Global Hawk is that it can linger over a target for 24 hours, a highly appealing capability for intelligence-gathering.

“It would also be truly global,” said Robert Chiota, manager for business development at Raytheon. “It could be operating over South Korea looking at North Korea and transmit images that it has collected to Virginia and then down to the ground commands in South Korea within seconds.”

Development of Global Hawk has not been without setbacks, however, and comes after more than two decades of expensive failed experiments in different forms of unmanned recon planes.

In the late 1980s, the Army spent more than $1 billion before scrapping the Aquila low-altitude battlefield UAV after it successfully completed its mission in only seven of 105 test flights. An additional $2.1 billion was spent developing the Hunter UAV, which was terminated four years ago after several crashes.

Last year, the Pentagon killed still another unmanned aircraft program called Dark Star, a stealth version of the Global Hawk, after reportedly secretly spending $850 million on it. The $400-million price tag for each of Lockheed Martin’s Dark Star UAVs was deemed too high, as was the risk of losing one--loaded with America’s most-advanced technology--over hostile territory.

In May 1999, a Global Hawk prototype crashed during a flight at China Lake Naval Weapons Center when it inadvertently received a test signal to terminate the flight, illustrating its vulnerability to human error and raising concerns among civilian aviation officials.

Ironically, although a pilotless vehicle is seen as beneficial in a combat zone, it has raised concerns among U.S. and foreign air-control officials who fear that an unforeseen emergency, such as an engine burnout, could bring it down over a populated area. The UAV would be less able to take corrective action, they say.

But Northrop officials say that in addition to a ground operator who could take control of the plane, there is a destruct mechanism that could destroy the craft before it crashed.

The Air Force has spent $760 million to develop and build the initial eight planes, two of which are in assembly and scheduled for delivery in 2002. The plan calls for building two airplanes annually for the next six years, eventually purchasing 40 to 45 by 2010, and 66 altogether.

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A Look at Global Hawk

With its long wingspan, the Global Hawk can hover over an area for 24 hours as its sophisticated sensors give military commanders a view of an area the size of the state of Illinois, day or night, cloudy or clear. More than 1,900 radar, optical and infrared images can be taken during a mission and instantly sent via satellite to ground troops nearby or to a command center halfway around the world.

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Outfitting the premier spy plane:

* Northrop Grumman Corp., Century City: prime contractor and system integrator; also builds the fuselage and assembles the aircraft in Palmdale.

* Raytheon Co., El Segundo: supplies the optical, infrared and radar sensors as well as the decoys that can be deployed to divert an enemy missile.

* Litton Industries, Woodland Hills: navigation equipment with global positioning system.

Sources: Congressional

Research Service, Northrop Grumman; photo courtesy of Northrop Grumman Corp.