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The autonomous aircraft has completed the inaugural non-stop transpacific flight to Japan.
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Northrop Grumman has announced it has successfully ferried the first of Japan’s three RQ-4B Global Hawks via a non-stop trans-Pacific flight from Palmdale, California.
After departing on Thursday (10 March), the aircraft completed an 18.7-hour journey before arriving at Misawa Air Base in Japan on 12 March.
“The arrival of the first Japan Global Hawk is an important milestone in the development of this critical security asset,” Jane Bishop, vice president and general manager, global surveillance at Northrop Grumman, said.
The RQ-4B Global Hawk is billed as a large high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV), equipped with mission-specific sensors leveraged to perform intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions.
The platform is expected to be used to monitor threats, while also supporting humanitarian assistance and disaster response.
“The autonomous Global Hawk will provide the Japan Air Self-Defense Force with persistent, high-altitude surveillance of the Indo-Pacific,” Bishop added.
“Global Hawk’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities will provide invaluable support to Japanese national security and to the security of allies across the region.”
Japan is among a growing list of nations to order the Global Hawk, with the US, Australia, NATO and South Korea expected to operate different variants of the platform.
In December, Northrop Grumman received a task order from the US Department of Defense Test Resource Management Center (TRMC) for the commencement of engineering and planning work to reconfigure four US Air Force EQ-4 Block 20 Global Hawk aircraft.
Once reconfigured at Northrop Grumman’s Grand Sky facility near Grand Forks, North Dakota, the four HALE aircraft will join the SkyRange fleet of testing vehicles.
