Global Hawk. A humungous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with a take off weight of 16 tons. That's DC3 kind of weight. Will stay up all day (24 hours) and carries nothing but surveillance equipment. Exact nature is classified, but cameras, radars, IR, snooping receivers. The Air Force paid $222 million apiece for 43 of 'em. That money will buy a brand new 787 jetliner, which seems kinda pricey. At this point the Air Force wants to mothball its entire fleet of 'em. Probably cause the intel they gather doesn't help the Air Force mission much. They bought the things to help out the Army in Afghanistan. Now that Afghanistan is winding down, and budget cuts are looming, so they want to mothball the pricey beasties. The program has friends in Congress who are trying to keep it alive.
Now, the Navy wants in. They claim a world wide sea surveillance mission and they want to buy 70 of 'em. The Navy gets a slightly better price than USAF did, $189 million apiece. Of course the Navy couldn't re use the retiring Air Force birds, the Navy wants to buy new. Northrup Grumman loves that. Total program cost, $13 billion.
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