TESTS COMPLETED GLOBAL HAWK CLOSER TO PRODUCTION.

Byline: Daily News

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance plane flight tests have been completed, bringing the production version one step closer to operational deployment.

The tests by the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center, Detachment 5, the 31st Test and Evaluation Squadron and the 452nd Flight Test Squadron will help the Air Combat Command decide whether the production Block 10 Global Hawk aircraft and its sensors are ready.

The plan, said Lt. Col. Andy Thurling, 452nd FLTS operations officer, is to replace the preproduction aircraft, called Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration, that are currently deployed in the Middle East.

``Each ACTD aircraft is a one-of-a-kind aircraft,'' he said. ``Production Global Hawks are standardized and have technical orders to allow Air Combat Command to operate the aircraft with their blue-suit maintainers.''

Currently, the maintenance crews are mostly aerospace company employees.

The report on the final report won't be ready for a number of weeks, officials said. The decision whether to deploy will come shortly after that.

Controlled by onboard computers under guidance by operators on the ground, the RQ-4A Global Hawk is capable of flying at an altitude of 65,000 feet, above storms and some six miles higher than jetliners normally fly, for more than 35 hours at a time. During a single mission, a Global Hawk can cover 40,000 square miles.

The aircraft were pressed into service after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, even though they were still being tested.

A larger Global Hawk, designated as RQ-4B, is being developed to carry even bigger loads of reconnaissance equipment. The new B models will be able to carry 3,000 pounds of equipment, compared with the 2,000-pound capacity of the A models.

The test aircraft are maintained at Edwards Air Force Base, but the operators for the three tests that ended last month were located at Beale Air Force Base in Northern California.

``Mission control was handed off to controllers at Beale ... which facilitated the image exploitation by image analysts,'' said David Morrow, deputy project manager. ``This is the same way it is done when the Global Hawk is deployed. The weapon system doesn't end with the aircraft; it ends with the dissemination of the imagery taken to the war fighter.''

The test missions resembled as closely as possible the types of sorties to be flown in a combat environment, Thurling said. Two lasted more than 28 hours, and one more than 13 1/2 hours.

The planes flew over Edwards, Nevada, Arizona and Utah, and off the California coast.

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The Global Hawk, once in production, will replace planes now deployed in the Middle East.

United States Air Force