Global Hawk UAV: Smart Drone Set to Replace U-2 Spy Plane

The Air Force's Global Hawk surveillance plane at Northrop Grumman in Palmdale, Calif. Five will be built this year.

Work tables surround a handful of fuselages, and an unusually long wing, needed to slip through the thin air at 60,000 feet, is ready to be bolted into place.

Open panels await controls for cameras and eavesdropping gear, and bright blue tool bins and parts vats are scattered around the concrete floor.

Just 50 people work in the factory and a test hangar, and only five of the drones will be built this year. But despite a spate of delays, second-guessing and cost overruns, the Global Hawk is once again on track to replace one of America’s most noted aircraft: the U-2 spy plane, famed for its role in the cold war and more recently Afghanistan.

The Air Force decided last month to stick with its $12 billion Global Hawk program, betting that the unmanned drone can replicate the aging U-2’s ability to sweep up a broad mix of intelligence from commanding heights, and do it more safely and for much longer stretches than the piloted U-2.

The Navy is also onboard, with plans to spend $11 billion on a version that could patrol vast ocean areas.

The continued push for the Global Hawk reflects how drones are changing warfare and how critical high-altitude spying can be in any type of fight.

Still, the program remains ensnared in military politics and budget battles, and the aircraft itself awaits some important technical changes that could slow its unveiling.

In particular, creating the new models and their high-tech sensors, which can cost more than the planes, has been difficult.

And in an era in which remotely piloted planes are seen as relatively cheap and easy solutions, the Global Hawk has become the Escalade of drones, the gold-plated one that nearly broke the bank.

“The Global Hawk is a very impressive product, but it is also a very expensive product,” said Richard L. Aboulafia, an aviation analyst at the Teal Group, a consultancy in Fairfax, Va. “Those U-2s were paid for a long time ago.”