At facilities in Southern California and elsewhere around the nation, Northrop Grumman Corporation is developing a family of unmanned aerial vehicles that operate from land bases and ships at sea, members of the Southern California Aeronautic Association were told at their September dinner meeting in Los Angeles.

Rick “Wigs” Ludwig, a veteran Navy fighter pilot who now heads business development for Northrop Grumman’s unmanned aerial systems group, told SCAA members and guests that the company’s RQ-4 Global Hawk aircraft are currently flying high altitude reconnaissance missions that range from the battlegrounds of Iraq and Afghanistan to the fire-prone brushlands of California.

 

Global Hawk is an unarmed, unmanned jet airplane that gathers high-quality images while cruising 60,000 feet above the surface, Ludwig said. These images are used by battlefield commanders to observe enemy vehicles and troops far below, and lately have been used to help firefighters in California track the progress of fast-moving brush fires in remote canyons.

 

Ludwig also described other unmanned systems now coming into use by Army, Air Force and Navy forces. These include the RQ-8 Fire Scout, a helicopter that recently proved its ability to land on the flight deck of a ship at sea while under remote control. Among Northrop Grumman’s latest concepts is a carrier-based naval aircraft called UCAS, for Unmanned Combat Air System. It resembles a scaled-down version of the company’s B-2 stealth bomber.