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Eyes Wide Open

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Eyes Wide Open The lone Global Hawk flying above Iraq was one busy, busy bird. Eyes Wide Open By Rebecca Grant HE US Air Force dispatched more What Global Hawk Did than 600 fighters, bombers, tankers, in the War airlifters, and intelligence-surveil- lance-reconnaissance aircraft to Op- eration Iraqi Freedom. In the pack All told, the RQ-4 aircraft snapped Twas one loner: the RQ-4 Global Hawk 3,655 images using all sensors unmanned aerial vehicle. The Air (radar, infrared, and electro-optical). These images helped locate and Force deployed to the theater just identify the following: one Global Hawk and flew it 18 days in a row to provide unblinking cov- ● 300+ tanks. erage of the Republican Guard and other key targets. ● 13 full SAM batteries. The performance of this aircraft over Iraq drew praise from all quar- ● 50+ individual SAM launch- ters and marked a significant step ers. forward for long-range, high-altitude ● 300+ SAM canisters. unmanned reconnaissance. The 1991 Gulf War dramatized ● 70+ SAM transporters. the possibilities of real-time imag- ery. The Desert Storm coalition ac- quired tremendous situation aware- ness from new assets such as E-8 Joint STARS aircraft, but there were gaps in ISR coverage of the battle- space. Commanders wanted a plat- form that would provide 24-hour coverage to support the hunt for Scuds and help keep track of Iraqi forces. That new requirement in 1991 led directly to the presence of 38 AIR FORCE Magazine / November 2003 Global Hawk in the skies over Iraq In the early 1980s, the Defense emy surface-to-air missiles and in 2003. Advanced Research Projects Agency fighters. The Defense Science Board’s began managing secret UAV pro- DARPA was the executive agent 1993 summer study called on the grams. One was Amber, a CIA-di- for the initial phases of the high- Pentagon to spur development of rected project that became the father altitude UAV demonstration pro- UAVs. This, it said, would help “fix of today’s Predator UAV. DARPA, gram, one of the first efforts in a new the problems exposed in Desert however, was on the lookout for a DOD plan to speed technology to the Storm.” The DSB said the use of “different, new, advanced technol- warfighter. reconnaissance UAVs would help ogy that would revolutionize ISR,” Fourteen companies submitted pro- US forces gain wide-area coverage, said John Entzminger, who was a posals. In May 1995, Ryan’s Global acquire all-weather access to the director of DARPA’s Tactical Tech- Hawk was announced as the winner battlespace, and integrate combat nology Office in the 1980s. of Tier II+. Airframe designer Al- information. “Long endurance, persistence— fredo Ramirez had already sketched The challenge was to create a new those kinds of things were in our out the distinctive “swoopy curves” type of craft, one that would build on mind at the time,” said Entzminger, and long wingspan of Global Hawk. the experience gained from decades who added that the question was, Now, engineers drew on proven tech- of operating remotely piloted ve- “Why does the man have to be there nologies to build Global Hawk, shoot- hicles—or drones—and experimen- in something which is going to stay ing for effectiveness, affordability, tal high-altitude vehicles. up for 24 hours?” and ease of maintenance. Drones had done yeoman’s work DARPA organized its unmanned Less than three years later, on Feb. in Vietnam. The Firebee drone was aerial vehicle research projects on 28, 1998, air vehicle-1 (or AV-1) launched from a mothership such the basis of planned performance. made its first flight at Edwards AFB, as a C-130 and guided by remote One such grouping—known as “Tier Calif. Program management shifted control. The Firebees streaked over II”—contained two very different from DARPA to the Air Force in targets at low altitude, snapping aircraft: medium-altitude (Tier II) October 1998, and, a month later, pictures of downtown Hanoi, puls- and high-altitude (Tier II+). They AV-2 made its maiden flight. Dur- ing electronic countermeasures, and were to be complementary, provid- ing a March 1999 test flight of AV-2, dropping leaflets. On their return, ing a low/high mix of forces. controllers mistakenly sent a signal helicopters would snag them with The high-altitude UAV was to to terminate flight, causing the UAV hooks. Although loss rates were merge responsive, long-duration to crash. It was a total loss. In May, fairly high, one drone, nicknamed tactical reconnaissance with the after a short safety review, AV-1 Tom Cat, flew 68 missions. wide-area and highly survivable re- resumed flight testing, and, by June, In the late 1960s and early 1970s, connaissance inherent in high-alti- Global Hawk participated in Roving experiments proved the feasibility tude operations. Given that demand, Sands, its first joint exercise. AV-3 of a “high-altitude, long-endurance” the Tier II+ UAV had to have en- began flying in September 1999, with RPV, often referred to by the acro- durance of at least 24 hours, carry a fourth Global Hawk waiting in the nym HALE. In 1971, the Compass high-resolution synthetic aperture wings at Edwards and a fifth nearly Arrow RPV flew four-hour surveil- radar and electro-optical-infrared complete. In December 1999, a soft- lance missions to a height of 81,000 sensors, and operate at 65,000 feet ware problem sent AV-3 careening feet. However, DOD canceled the to stay above the threat from en- across the Edwards runway at 178 expensive program after producing mph instead of its normal taxi speed 28 vehicles and never put them into of about seven mph. It ran off the operational service. runway, seriously damaging its fu- Requirements had changed. A selage and nose gear. program that was intended to pro- These growing pains, however, did duce a more sophisticated RPV, not faze Entzminger. “I was some- Compass Cope, featured a flyoff between Teledyne Ryan and Boeing. The concepts were to demonstrate autonomous flight from takeoff to landing. In 1974, Ryan’s Compass Cope piloted itself to a series of preprogrammed way points and set an RPV endurance record with a 28-hour flight. However, when it came time to buy an operational system, the Air Force of the 1970s was not ready. The development of the Global Positioning System and more-pow- erful computing power in the 1980s made the high-altitude, long-endur- USAF photo by SSgt. Reynaldo Ramon Contract personnel deployed forward and were a big part of Global Hawk’s ance unmanned aerial vehicle an at- success. Here, Terry Collins of L3 Communications checks the aircraft’s tractive prospect. satellite uplinks and downlinks. AIR FORCE Magazine / November 2003 39 employed Global Hawk in an opera- tional context,” said Col. Ed Walby, the Global Hawk detachment com- mander and a U-2 pilot. No Joystick Here Global Hawk is about as big as a medium-size corporate jet, but it USAF photo by SSgt. Reynaldo Ramon sports a long, sailplane-like wing. It has a bulbous nose that houses a large, steerable satellite antenna. The UAV is not piloted from the ground via joystick; its flight control, navi- gation, and vehicle management are autonomous. The Global Hawk system has two provided were so sharp that, in one ground stations: a launch and recov- exercise, Global Hawk “caught the ery element and mission control ele- USS Kitty Hawk out at sea with an F/ ment. The LRE, which deploys with A-18 coming in to land.” the aircraft, provides precision guid- The UAV also got heavy use in the The Australia deployment dem- ance for takeoff and landing, using Afghan war. onstrated not only that Global Hawk differential GPS. The MCE gives could fly unrefueled 7,500 miles the vehicle its flight plan and tells it across the Pacific but also that it where to point its sensors. The two could be retasked while airborne. units can deploy alongside each other what surprised there weren’t more,” “We figured out we could actually or in widely separated parts of the he remarked later. fly off the black line,” said Maj. world. While the MCE preprograms David Hambleton. “We could go an initial flight plan, it can dynami- Rising Need wherever we wanted to—direct steer cally retask Global Hawk at any time By the time of Operation Allied to a point in space that we hadn’t the UAV is in flight. Force in spring 1999, US warfighting thought about going to before. That Pentagon officials have said that commanders were more than eager was a big revolution in our think- the Global Hawk’s synthetic aper- for a solution to the problem of ing.” ture radar can provide images of tar- keeping a constant eye on the battle- Exciting as the exercises were, gets at a distance of 100 miles. Its space. One key frustration was hav- Global Hawk was still an immature electro-optical-infrared system has ing to orchestrate several systems— system. USAF had only five ve- identified targets at a distance of 30 satellites, U-2 aircraft, and other hicles—all demonstrators lacking the miles. tactical reconnaissance platforms— full-scale mission systems or reli- On Nov. 18, 2001, Global Hawk to get the data they needed in time. ability features that would be added AV-5 was flying a routine check-out It couldn’t always be done. The to production models. mission over Afghanistan when it Predator UAV, which had first seen Then came the Sept. 11 terror was called to provide imagery of a operational service in 1995 over attacks and, three weeks later, the brewing crisis.
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