Watch Battlefields Almost Two Times Longer
Northrop Grumman Corporation announced Thursday the company
concluded a series of flights January 5 that demonstrated the
weapons-capable MQ-5B Hunter unmanned aerial vehicle's (UAV)
ability to fly more than 21 hours, which is almost a ten-hour
increase over the original RQ-5A Hunter UAV.
"The MQ-5B increases our gross take-off weight to 1,950 pounds,
providing our forces the capability to perform
intelligence-gathering missions exceeding 21 hours using a single
unmanned aircraft; or carry significantly more payload weight,"
said Lt. Col. Jeff Gabbert, program manager of medium altitude
endurance programs for the Army. "The fact that the MQ-5B is
integrated into the Army's One System ground control station offers
us interoperability and decreases our training time, enabling us to
train our first unit very rapidly as they deploy this greatly
improved system in the near future."
Northrop Grumman accomplished the significant endurance increase
by two commonsense, time-honored methods: adding fuel capacity to
the Hunter's center wing area, and increasing the efficiency of the
aircraft's main engine.
"An endurance increase of this magnitude means soldiers can keep
Hunter aloft much longer, allowing them to gather more intelligence
and survey larger areas during a single flight," said Jim Perry,
director of Hunter unmanned aerial systems for Northrop Grumman. "A
flight time exceeding 21 hours, coupled with advanced avionics and
sensors, makes the MQ-5B the most advanced unmanned aerial system
in the Army's inventory today."
In addition to increasing the persistence of the Hunter's
intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission, the aircraft
can carry and deliver weapons, a wide variety of other
joint-network sensors, and offers soldiers easy operation and a
commonly used fuel for battlefield operations.
The series of flights were conducted at Northrop Grumman's
Cochise flight facility in southern Arizona.
During the final test flight, the air vehicle was launched
January 4 and returned to the facility the next day.
The first MQ-5B Hunter UAV systems, consisting of six aircraft
and three ground control stations, will deploy with the Army's
224th military intelligence unit to support the global war on
terrorism.
Northrop Grumman's RQ-5A Hunter UAVs have flown more than 19,000
hours on combat missions with the Army in the Balkans and Iraq.