Message posted by Griffon_314 on January 24, 2012 at 14:16:32 PST:
Here's an interesting news item from Loren Thompson at Early Warning: The pentagon's fiscal 2013 budget request will propose retiring the RQ-4 Block 30's in favor of the U-2. As I read this report, I'm not sure whether this is truly a reduction in Global Hawk numbers as Dr. Thompson asserts, or if something else is up (perhaps reversing course on the reduction of Block 40's? Recall that they went from ordering 22 to 11 about a year ago...or maybe another platform factors in). The post also cites U-2 operational life as extending to 2023 now.
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