RQ-4 passes 4.8K aloft.The 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. Global Hawk UAV-3 test vehicle, initially built as a demonstrator dem·on·stra·tor n. 1. One that demonstrates, such as a participant in a public display of opinion. 2. An article or product used in a demonstration. demonstrator Noun 1. to test and evaluate technologies, recently returned from over 4800 flight hours in 167 missions over Southwest Asia Southwest Asia or Southwestern Asia (largely overlapping with the Middle East) is the southwestern portion of Asia. The term Western Asia is sometimes used in writings about the archeology and the late prehistory of the region, and in the United States subregion . The UAV-3 airframe was never intended to be used in combat operations, but shortly after 9/11 the US Air Force quickly changed its mission. Two production RQ-4A drones have been deployed to the Afghanistan/Iraq operating theatre to replace the UAV-3, and have been flying almost continuous missions since their arrival. During its deployment the UAV-3 logged the most combat hours of any single high-altitude UAV UAV Unmanned Aerial Vehicle UAV Unmanned Air Vehicle UAV Unmanned Aerospace Vehicle UAV Unmanned Airborne Vehicle UAV Uninhabited Air Vehicle UAV Urban Assault Vehicle UAV Unpiloted Aerial Vehicle (less common) (original plans called for around 40 test flights each year) and has achieved a 95% mission effectiveness rate. |
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