GERMAN TEST FLIGHTS COMPLETED U.S. ROBOT PLANE PERFORMS.Byline: Daily News Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) is an aerospace and defense conglomerate that is the result of the 1994 purchase of Grumman by Northrop. The company is the third largest defense contractor for the U.S. officials have announced completion of German demonstration flights of a U.S. Air Force RQ-4A Global Hawk robot reconnaissance  This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone and/or spelling.You can assist by [ editing it] now. plane equipped with an electronic intelligence sensor prototype. The flights, conducted from the German Navy's Nordholz Air Base near Cuxhaven, were the first high-altitude, long-endurance, unmanned aerial vehicle A powered, aerial vehicle that does not carry a human operator, uses aerodynamic forces to provide vehicle lift, can fly autonomously or be piloted remotely, can be expendable or recoverable, and can carry a lethal or nonlethal payload. flights in German airspace. The flights were observed by representatives of the German armed forces, government ministries and industry. German defense officials are interested in developing and producing a European variant variant /var·i·ant/ (var´e-ant) 1. something that differs in some characteristic from the class to which it belongs. 2. exhibiting such variation. var·i·ant adj. of Global Hawk, to be called Euro Hawk. Euro Hawk would be based on the model RQ-4B Global Hawk and carry a sensor package developed by European defense company EADS EADS European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company N.V. EADS Expeditionary Air Defense System (USMC) EADS Extended Air Defense Systems EADS Environmental Assessment Data System EADS Echelons Above Division Study . The Palmdale-built Global Hawk made several flights over the North Sea, each lasting several hours. With the prototype electronic sensors, Global Hawk was able to detect and identify electromagnetic electromagnetic /elec·tro·mag·net·ic/ (-mag-net´ik) involving both electricity and magnetism. electromagnetic pertaining to or emanating from electromagnetism. signals from a variety of sources, including air-defense radars, Northrop Grumman officials said. ``This successful flight-test program not only validates the robustness and performance of the Global Hawk system, but also demonstrates the powerful shared capabilities and interoperability The capability of two or more hardware devices or two or more software routines to work harmoniously together. For example, in an Ethernet network, display adapters, hubs, switches and routers from different vendors must conform to the Ethernet standard and interoperate with each other. among a variety of systems that can result from cooperation between U.S. and German defense industries,'' said Martin E. Dandridge, executive vice president for Northrop Grumman's Integrated Systems and general manager of the sector's unmanned-systems business. EADS, the largest aerospace and defense company in Europe, and Northrop Grumman initiated the Euro Hawk project in 2000 with the goal of developing an unmanned, wide-area surveillance and reconnaissance system that would bring together the companies' respective expertise. A bilateral project agreement between the U.S. Air Force and the German defense ministry, signed in October 2001, called for the sensor integration program and the Nordholz flight demonstration in the Euro Hawk development. |
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