GLOBAL HAWK NOW IN GERMANY AIRCRAFT TO BE TESTED FOR SURVEILLANCE NEEDS.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - A Global Hawk reconnaissance aircraft arrived Wednesday in Germany to begin a series of tests to see whether the airplane can fill that nation's surveillance needs.

Flying from Edwards Air Force Base, the unmanned airplane arrived at the German navy's Nordholz Air Base, about 40 miles northwest of Hamburg, after a nearly 21-hour flight.

The airplane will be in Germany for three weeks of testing with European-built electronic intelligence sensors, according to Northrop Grumman, which assembles Global Hawks in Palmdale.

The testing is being done to see whether a proposed European version of the Global Hawk, called the Euro Hawk, could be used to watch over wide tracts of land. Euro Hawk is being developed as a candidate to replace the Breguet Atlantic 1150 plane that will be phased out of the German military beginning in 2008.

In preparation for the testing, the U.S. Air Force and German Ministry of Defense officials conducted demonstration flights at Edwards last November to test the ability of the sensors to reliably send information via a data link to a ground station.

Controlled by computer, the Global Hawk can fly 1,200 miles, linger over its target area for 24 hours at nearly twice the altitude of a passenger jetliner, and then fly back.

The Global Hawk's radar is capable of detecting objects 100 miles away, and its cameras provide still images clear enough to identify targets as far away as 30 miles.

The U.S. Air Force plans to buy 51 of the aircraft in a slightly larger version that can eavesdrop on enemy communications. The Navy has ordered two of the aircraft to test.

In addition to Germany, Australian defense officials have expressed an interest in using Global Hawk aircraft.