Global Hawk: “Thar She Blow$!”
In a recent Battleland post, mark Thompson noted the cost of a crashed Global Hawk: $72.8 million according to the Air Force. Some will automatically think that price equates to the unit cost for the drone. As they say, that’s not the half of it.
Dark and sinister forces sent me a copy of the Pentagon’s 2010 Selected Acquisition Report for the Global Hawk…
See page 29; the total program unit cost (i.e. R&D and Procurement and Milcon, also known as Program Acquisition Unit Cost [PAUC] and counting the extensive ground control components) for the Global Hawk is $211.0 million in then-year dollars (i.e. the ones actually to be appropriated).
Want to discount the R&D? That’ll get you down to $140.9 million each, but that ain’t the “sticker price.” (Go to your local Chevy dealer and tell the salesman you’ll only pay for factory assembly & materials costs, not GM and dealer overhead, product testing, transport, and a lot more [not any of it profit]; don’t expect a polite answer.)
See also the last page of the SAR where DOD estimates the O&S costs, add $29.2 billion, not counted above, to the total cost of the program. Air Force data on flying hour costs also is a little higher than drone advocates like to advertise. each RQ-4B costs $31,052 to operate each hour in the air, a lot for a high- endurance drone, and annual flying costs are running at $16.8 million per year for each air vehicle. (This USAF data is available on request.)
Those numbers are before the most recent cost increases, likely to be reported in April in the next SAR.
Think Global Hawk is performing OK, other than in the now shamed Block 30 version that couldn’t outperform a 50-year old manned aircraft design? Check out the comments of the Director of Operation Test and Evaluation on Global Hawk for 2011. It’s mostly Pentagonese gobbledey-gook, but if you can discern the actual meaning and read between the lines, you will not come away with a warm and fuzzy about the Block 10, 20 and 40 versions of Global Hawk.
Look at the picture of Global Hawk: “Whale” would be more appropriate, but that wouldn’t help the salesmen for Block 30, and the rest, at the House Armed Services Committee.
Global Hawk: “Thar She Blow$!”
8 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
bridesmaids dresses
Comment by women's clothes — June 25, 2012 @ 7:21 am
cocktail dresses
Comment by cheap replica watches — September 13, 2012 @ 7:50 pm
best luxury watches
Comment by best luxury watches — September 22, 2012 @ 6:45 am
I wish to show some appreciation to the writer just for bailing me out of this type of issue. As a result of looking throughout the internet and meeting techniques which are not productive, I thought my life was gone. Existing without the strategies to the difficulties you’ve resolved by way of your main guideline is a serious case, and the ones that might have negatively damaged my career if I had not discovered your blog post. Your primary talents and kindness in dealing with every part was valuable. I am not sure what I would’ve done if I had not come across such a point like this. I’m able to at this time look ahead to my future. Thank you very much for your high quality and sensible guide. I won’t think twice to refer your web blog to any individual who needs to have direction on this problem.
Comment by nike free — October 29, 2012 @ 3:27 pm
Hi, I just wanted to tell you, you’re dead wrong. Your article doesn’t make any sense.
Comment by xelerated guide — March 3, 2013 @ 7:58 pm
Incredible story there. What happened after? Take care!
Comment by dotcomsecrets x review — March 4, 2013 @ 6:00 pm
Highly energetic blog, I liked that a lot. Will there be a part 2?
Comment by guide to make money online — March 5, 2013 @ 12:22 am
Informative article, just what I was looking for.
Comment by dotcomsecrets x — March 6, 2013 @ 2:04 am