More Global Hawks for GFAB

The Grand Forks Herald reports the arrival of Block 20 Global Hawks at Grand Forks Airforce Base

Grand Forks Air Force Base is taking control of more Global Hawk unmanned aircraft, according to their manufacturer Northrop Grumman.

The latest batch serve as, essentially, flying “cell towers” that allow troops on the ground to chat with bombers in the sky, according to spokesman Jim Stratford today.

He was at an Air Force Association conference in Washington, D.C., with George Guerra, the Northrop Grumman executive overseeing the Global Hawk program. Guerra discussed the base’s new aircraft at the conference but wasn’t available for comment.

In technical terms, the new aircraft are Block 20 variants that feature so-called “battlefield airborne communication nodes.”

BACN connects radio equipment that doesn’t operate on the same frequency and allows them to circumvent radio-wave-blocking mountains, drastically improving voice and data transmissions in the war zone.