Le Bourget, France—Air Force, Navy, and NASA Global Hawk remotely piloted aircraft will achieve “convergence” in 2013 or 2014, Northrop Grumman’s Walt Kreitler told reporters at the Paris Air Show here Monday. That means their “core systems,” such as communications, ground support, sense-and-avoid gear, and de-icing capability, will be alike, he said. Kreitler, who works on the Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance version of the RPA, said the Air Force’s RQ-4 Global Hawk program has been a “38-airplane risk-reduction program” for BAMS. Now, technology developed for BAMS will flow back to the USAF version. However, the services have different needs so their aircraft will have some unique features. BAMS, expected to achieve initial operational capability in 2015, will have 360-degree capability in its electro-optical and infrared scanners. That’s something the USAF models currently lack. Northrop is the Global Hawk prime contractor.
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…