| Reassembled from the Grumman press release masquerading as a WaPo article. Some videos at the link. |
The massive MQ-4C Triton maritime surveillance drone, expected to be operational in 2017, reached a new milestone Thursday. At 7:53 a.m., one of the 131-foot wide aircraft landed at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland following its first cross-country flight, the Navy said. The drone soared at heights of more than 50,000 feet at times; it departed from a facility in Palmdale, Calif., owned by its maker, Northrop Grumman, late Wednesday. It flew along the U.S.-Mexico border, over the Gulf of Mexico and across Florida before turning north up the Atlantic Coast.
The Triton had completed 15 test flights prior to the one landing in Maryland on Thursday. The first occurred in May 2013 from Palmdale. Northrop Grumman said Thursday that over the next few weeks, two other Triton drones will fly to Maryland. One is owned by the Navy; the other is a demonstration aircraft owned by the defense firm.
The drone is expected to supplement the Navytms new P-8 Poseidon surveillance plane, performing what the service calls Broad Area Maritime Surveillance, or BAMS. Northrop Grumman says the drone, a descendant of the Air Forcetms Global Hawk unmanned aircraft, will rely on radar, infrared sensors and advanced cameras to provide full-motion video and photographs to the military. |