I keep forgetting about how damn huge some drones are. Most people think they are tiny, like toy planes. As this photo of a Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk shows, they are actually big. Big as in pretty damn huge.
This image was taken at last year’s Seoul Air Show in South Korea. I have seen one of this live at the Dubai Air Show and I was truly impressed. They are indeed gigantic.
The Global Hawk is an unmanned aerial vehicle used but the USAF and the US Navy. Like the good old U-2, the Global Hawk is a spy and surveillance aircraft capable of many digital wonders, providing both with radar and optical data. It can cover 103,600 square kilometres per day. [Northrop Grumman]
JonBOY
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 10:58 AMUAV online…..
Gives me a bit more of an appreciation for all those UAV’s I scrap with my rocket launcher on Call of Duty :)
TSH
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 10:59 AMIf that guy’s standing right next to it, it’s still a hell of a lot smaller than, say, an F-22.
Now, if we can have a few of these patrolling the edge of Australia’s ocean waters, equipped with a torpedo…
SilentWolf
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 12:17 PMTo defend us from what?
Ren
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 12:32 PMHavent you read/seen “Tomorrow when the war began”?
..apparently from a potential invasion by resource hungry neighbours.
boonzie
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 12:53 PMwhales!
eyeinthesky
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 2:16 PMThats what our Navy and to a lesser extent the Customs patrol boats are for. I believe the Boeing Scaneagle is used by our armed services and has been trialed at least twice in the North of Australia last year. Coastwatch aircraft and sometimes Orions patrol the northern borders/waters every single day of the year. There is always scope for UAVs, but it always comes down to budget.
Kent
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 12:30 PMYeah silent is right, only thing threatening our lifestyle is the damn dingos.
curto
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 2:06 PMDo you know what is the most populous Islamic Country in the world ? And one which is seriously contemplating a move to Sharia law. ? Indonesia
It will not be the US that will save us from them – but China worrying about losing access to all of our natural resources.
Ozoneocean
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 2:26 PMI think TSH likes the idea of murdering hundreds of innocent people- poor families deprived of all that they own and stuck on at sea on dangerous ships.
Time to call the psychiatrists on this idiot.
Steve
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 3:01 PMThat’s a bit misleading. This isn’t a widely-used UAV, most of the current ones flying are Reapers or Predators which are much smaller than the Global Hawk, which itself is still significantly smaller than manned fighters.
Just This Guy ...
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 3:30 PMThis
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/RQ-4_Global_Hawk.jpg
“The current Global Hawk “A” model has a wingspan of 116 feet (35.4 meters) and is 44 feet long (13.5 meters).”
MD
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 11:18 PMAgree, some of the above comments are a little ill informed…. its easy..
The F-22 is 62 feet, 1 inch long, it has a wingspan of 44 feet 6 inches (13.6m), this is bigger by a long way….
I didn’t realise they were so big, I knew that the Reaper has a 20m wingspan, 35 metres is a considerable bit bigger (volume up by the cube..)….
These things are much cheaper to run than a similarly sized manned plane, they have a more efficient air frame, and much higher loiter time, it is a bit easier to change shifts when the pilots are on the ground….
No excuses not to patrol the coastline, for all illegal activities…..
Mandatory radar transponders for all off shore surface vessels, and a few draconian measures, and it will become easier to spot those up to mischief.