Navy personnel in Southwest Asia tend to a Global Hawk drone, 2009. Photo: U.S. Air Force
The Navy was all set to roll out its upgraded spy drone, a 44-foot behemoth. Then one of its Global Hawks crashed into an eastern Maryland marsh on Monday. It’s the latest setback for the Navy’s robotic aircraft.
An unarmed RQ-4A Global Hawk went down during a training exercise near the Naval aviation base at Patuxent River, Maryland on Monday, CNN reports. Local news has footage of the wreckage. No one was hurt except the Navy’s pride.
But ouch, that pride. As AOL Defense reports, Thursday marks the debut of a new pimped-out Global Hawk at Pax River, as part of the Navy’s newest iteration of its Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Program. BAMS, as it’s known, uses a Global Hawk outfitted with Navy-specific sensors to spy on a whole lot of ocean and beach. In this case, the Navy was set to debut two new, powerful 360-degree radars aboard its Global Hawks, with range in the hundreds of miles, as part of a $1.16 billion contract signed in 2008.
via Wired
