SPY PLANE PRODUCTION MAY SLOW GAO, PENTAGON AT ODDS OVER COST, READINESS.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

PALMDALE - The Global Hawk robot spy plane earned raves for its performance over Iraq and Afghanistan but is drawing heat for costs that are expected to increase nearly 40 percent - from $4.76 billion to $6.65 billion.

The Defense Department's investment in production of a larger version of the unmanned aircraft is coming before the larger version has been tested and before the new intelligence gathering equipment it is to carry has been proven, says a Governmental Accountability Office report to Congress.

``With substantial overlap in development, testing, and production, the Global Hawk program has experienced serious cost, schedule, and performance problems,'' the report said.

As costs have gone up, the projected number of the unmanned aircraft being assembled by Northrop Grumman workers in Palmdale has shrank from 63 planes to 51 planes for the Air Force plus two more for the Navy.

The GAO report, compiled for the Senate Armed Services Committee, recommends that the Defense Department limit production of the new larger ``B'' model Global Hawk to just a few test aircraft until both the airframe and the sensors it will carry are proven.

The Pentagon strongly disagrees. The concurrent process gets the aircraft to troops in combat sooner and the development risks are being properly managed, the Pentagon says.

``The GAO's recommendation would stop the current established production line, incurring significant cost and schedule delays,'' Mark Schaeffer, the Defense Department's acting director of defense systems, wrote in response to the report. ``Combatant commanders continue to request this capability, and the acquisition strategy balances risk with the need to support the warfighter.''

Northrop Grumman, the aircraft's prime manufacturer, is preparing a statement in response to the report. Until that response is approved for release by the Air Force, a company spokeswoman said the comment they could make for now was to echo the comments made by Schaeffer.

``Northrop Grumman supports the Department of Defense and the Air Force,'' said company spokeswoman Revelle Anderson. ``Our Number One mission is to support the warfighter.''

The ``build a little, field a little'' approach allows new technologies and lessons learned from the field to be incorporated into future aircraft where a more traditional approach would deliver a system with only the technologies available when production started, the Defense Department says.

Part of the risk management is an ongoing effort to test the new intelligence equipment on other aircraft, such as Lockheed Martin's venerable U-2, the Defense Department said.

Controlled by onboard computers, the Global Hawk is capable of flying at an altitude of 65,000 feet, above storms and some six miles higher than jetliners normally fly. A Global Hawk can fly for more than 35 hours at a time, and during a single mission can cover 40,000 square miles - bigger than the area of Indiana.

Prior to the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the Global Hawk program was in a technology demonstration phase in which a handful of aircraft were being built and tested to see whether a high-altitude, unmanned reconnaissance aircraft was possible.

After the 2001 attacks, the Global Hawk test aircraft were pressed into war duty over both Afghanistan and Iraq. In the past year, Global Hawk aircraft have provided 15,000 images of targets in the Middle East, according to the Pentagon.

The program has logged more than 8,000 flight hours thus far, with over half of that total being in war service.

In January, the first two production RQ-4A Global Hawks were deployed to an undisclosed Middle East location to begin intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Those aircraft replaced the early test aircraft that served in combat.

Two more production RQ-4A model aircraft will be delivered to the Air Force in the next few weeks.

At Northrop Grumman's facilities at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, six larger ``B'' model aircraft are in various stages of production. The B models are designed to carry 3,000 pounds of equipment, compared with 2,000 pounds carried by the RQ-4As.

The Global Hawk aircraft are being built by a small cadre of Northrop Grumman workers in Palmdale. Although employment numbers on the program are small, Antelope Valley officials soliciting other programs point to the Global Hawk as an example of the region's technical know-how.

Jim Skeen, [phone]

james.skeen(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

A Global Hawk robot spyplane gets towed after its arrival at Edwards Air Force Base from Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale.

Air Force