While the US Air Force has been trying to retire its fleet of RQ-4 Global Hawk Block 30 UAS, the House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee is again stepping in to keep the birds flying.
In the subcommittee’s markup of the Pentagon’s 2014 budget, lawmakers direct the Air Force secretary “to take all actions necessary to maintain the operational capability” of the Global Hawk and to keep them flying though 2016.
The Global Hawk was once touted as the replacement for the U-2 manned spy plane, but USAF leadership has since concluded that the service would be better off scrapping the Block 30 aircraft while continuing to use the U-2.
And the Army comes in for some criticism over its failure to begin studying the possibility of using UAS to resupply its troops in the field, as the Marines have been doing in Afghanistan with the unmanned K-MAX helicopter since early 2012.
Given the force protection benefits of taking trucks off IED-laden roads, “the committee is concerned that the Army, despite having very similar logistical challenges, does not have a cargo UAS programme,” they write. The committee has therefore directed the secretary of the Army to submit a report by February explaining how a cargo UAS could be used in Army operations.
Source: Defense News