The high-altitude Global Hawk endurance unmanned reconnaissance aircraft is getting special Pentagon attention with plans to spend as much as an extra $ 1 billion in the next five years to buy additional aircraft and position it to take over the duties of the manned U-2. The goal is to give Northrop Grumman's UAV a reconnaissance and signals-intelligence-gathering capability comparable to that of the latest-model U-2S. To that end, the Air Force is planning a series of upgrades to turn the Global Hawk to a true multi-intelligence collector. "If everything plays out the way we would like it to—and as we see the development occur and the technology challenges overcome, as we think they can—then we would hope to begin to fund migration of the mission to Global Hawk by taking some money out of the U-2 program," said Lt. Gen. Stephen B. Plummer, USAF's senior acquisition officer.
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