By Marina Malenic
The Air Force’s RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned surveillance aircraft is now projected to experience a nine-month delay in a major testing and certification milestone, but a Defense Department review of the program has given it the green light to continue development, officials said last week.
The initial operational test and evaluation (IOT&E) program for the Block 20/30 Global Hawk had originally been scheduled to take place between August and November. The review determines whether a system is operationally effective and suitable, and allows the procurement process to move forward.
“We had some problems up front in…our development testing, which have been fixed,” Marty Evans, the deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for Information Dominance programs, told Defense Daily in a June 4 interview. “It’s now about a nine-month slip” to IOT&E.
Evans noted a spate of problems with software and sensors, in addition to simple mechanical difficulties with the landing gear, in early Block 20/30 flights. She said Air Force officials are holding discussions with Northrop Grumman representatives every other week in hopes of preventing further schedule delays.
“We’ve been working with them on the detail of the test schedule and the manpower needed” for testing, she added.
Asked what the schedule slip will cost the government, Evans said Northrop Grumman is preparing a proposal specifying that amount.
Northrop Grumman officials said on June 5 that it was likely to be in the “tens of millions” of dollars.
Just prior to her resignation as assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, Sue Payton criticized the company for its failure to maintain the program’s IOT&E schedule and for problems with one of its sensor suites. The letter was controversial, as it reportedly was not supported by key uniformed leaders in the acquisition community involved with the Global Hawk. Even at the time, Northrop Grumman maintained that any IOT&E slip was only partially a result of development delays caused by hardware or software adjustments.
Ed Walby, the company’s business development manager for the program, told Defense Daily that “most of the things pointed out in the letter already were behind us and not necessarily major contributors to any delays in the program.” He explained that growth in the testing requirements themselves was already derailing the schedule.
“This is a development program,” he added. “Saying that these discoveries in test were causes for the [IOT&E] delay are, at best, an exaggeration.”
For example, a gear door was dislodged from an aircraft during an early test flight. Evans said it was redesigned and repaired within a week.
“That’s certainly not grounds for delaying the testing,” he said.
Meanwhile, according to Northrop Grumman officials, the program was given the go-ahead to proceed earlier this month by the Defense Department’s new weapons buyer, Ashton Carter. The Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) review gave managers permission to continue with all development and production plans, according to Eric Garvin, another Global Hawk manager for Northrop Grumman. By contrast, he noted, several of Global Hawk’s previous DAB reviews resulted in DoD withholding some authorizations for long-lead procurement pending further testing.
“Many of the issues identified in the Payton letter we were actually praised for,” Garvin said, “because discovering problems and correcting them is what you’re supposed to do as part of a development effort.”
Further, Evans said Block 30 Global Hawks are already prepared for forward basing in Europe and Asia.
“The jets are already built that are going to the Pacific and going to Europe,” he said, adding that they will be moved to bases in those regions even before IOT&E is completed.
“I don’t want to characterize it as a paperwork exercise, but IOT&E is not absolutely necessary to get the jets to move forward, to get ready to fly combat operations,” he said.
Last week, South Korean and U.S. news outlets reported that the deputy chief of U.S. forces in South Korea, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Remington, said the Air Force plans to replace its manned U-2 spy planes, stationed at Guam, with Global Hawks. An Air Force spokeswoman told Defense Daily that, while the plan exists, there is no definitive schedule in place yet for executing it.
South Korean news media were also reporting last week that Seoul and Washington are in talks for a Global Hawk sale to South Korea. Northrop Grumman officials said the current cost for a single aircraft is between $28 million and $30 million. Sensor suites can cost up to an additional $50 million for the most sophisticated packages.