The U.S. Air Force has signed an agreement with the U.S. Navy to streamline Global Hawk acquisition. An Aug. 28 Memorandum Of Agreement (MOA) is expected to make development and upgrades to the Global Hawk more efficient because it allows the two services to share resources. In April the Navy settled on the Global Hawk as its high-altitude surveillance aircraft while the Air Force has a decade's experience flying Global Hawk reconnaissance missions.

"This agreement allows the Navy and Air Force to continue pursuing common objectives across the RQ-4 Enterprise while retaining each Service's unique missions and operational requirements," said Navy Capt. Bob Dishman, program manager for the Navy's Persistent Maritime Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program Office.

The services have flown joint missions, shared parts and other equipment and, through another formal agreement, conducted testing for Global Hawk Block 10 aircraft.

"We have proven success in leveraging efficiencies with the Block 10 systems," Dishman said. "Now, with the establishment of the RQ-4 as the basis for the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Unmanned Aircraft System program, we look to further advance these synergies to deliver unprecedented capability to the warfighter."

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