Sky Range Program Repurposes Wartime UAS

Grand Sky Business and Aviation Park—America’s only UAS (unmanned aerial systems)-specific business and aviation park located at Grand Forks Air Force Base—will accept twenty Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from the United States Air Force’s 319th Reconnaissance Wing.

The move is part of the Air Force’s Block 30 divestment plan, a scheme by which the service seeks to dump extant, multi-million dollar assets for purpose obtaining funding to acquire multi-billion dollar, future assets—or, as the Air Force puts it: restructure intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets to meet national defense priorities, and assist in funding modernization and increase capability to counter threats posed by peer competitors like China and Russia.

Gen. C.Q. Brown, Jr., Air Force Chief of Staff, stated in a memo: “We must transform our force today to the Air Force we need tomorrow. The divestment of this weapons system was a tough but necessary resourcing choice we had to make in order to begin realizing a budgeted savings of over two billion dollars.”

To date, GrandSky has taken delivery of four, Block 20, and five Block 30 Global Hawks. The final 15 specimens of the Northrop Grumman, high-altitude, remotely-piloted surveillance UAV will be transferred to the facility by 31 July. 

While at GrandSky, the divested Global Hawks will be fitted-out with new and different sensor technology before being allocated to the SkyRange mission—a NASA undertaking that will see the aircraft perform ground and flight operations specific to the development of technologies and systems germane to hypersonic flight. Upon completion of the retrofitting program, the test-aircraft will be re-designated Range Hawks.

GrandSky President Tom Swoyer states: “It is our goal to work with our partners and tenants to convert the Global Hawks into Range Hawks and keep them flying to keep UAS operations and research front and center.”

The SkyRange program—which will be overseen by GrandSky tenant and partner, Northrop Grumman—brings significant economic and developmental opportunities to North Dakota and the Grand Forks Region.

FMI: www.grandskynd.com