Northrop Grumman Demonstrates Long Endurance Hunter

Released on Thursday, February 16, 2006

Northrop Grumman Corporation concluded a series of flights January 5 that demonstrated the weapons-capable MQ-5B Hunter unmanned aerial vehicle's (UAV) ability to fly more than 21 hours, which is almost a ten-hour increase over the original RQ-5A Hunter UAV.

Northrop Grumman's weapons-capable MQ-5B Hunter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) concluded a series of flights that demonstrated the UAV's ability to fly for more than 21 hours.

The MQ-5B increases the Hunter gross take-off weight to 1,950 pounds, providing our forces the capability to perform intelligence-gathering missions exceeding 21 hours using a single unmanned aircraft; or carry significantly more payload weight. The fact that the MQ-5B is integrated into the Army's One System ground control station offers us interoperability and decreases our training time, enabling US Army to train its first unit very rapidly as they deploy this greatly improved system in the near future.

Northrop Grumman accomplished the endurance increase by adding fuel capacity to the Hunter's center wing area and increasing the efficiency of the air vehicle's heavy fuel engine.

In addition to increasing the persistence of the Hunter's intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission, the aircraft can carry and deliver weapons, a wide variety of other joint-network sensors, and offers soldiers easy operation and a commonly used fuel for battlefield operations.

The series of flights were conducted at Northrop Grumman's Cochise flight facility in southern Arizona. During the final test flight, the air vehicle was launched January 4 and returned to the facility January 5.

The first MQ-5B Hunter UAV systems, consisting of six aircraft and three ground control stations, will deploy with the Army's 224th military intelligence unit to support the global war on terrorism. Northrop Grumman's RQ-5A Hunter UAVs have flown more than 19,000 hours on combat missions with the Army in the Balkans and Iraq.