14 DAY TRIAL // An Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) that has been in service with the US Army since 1996 has just surpassed the 100,000 combat flight hours mark, officials with the Northrop Grumman Corporation said in a recent statement. The drone in question is designated MQ-5B Hunter.
Even though it has been in service for more than 18 years, the UAS is still capable of delivering state-of-the-art reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RSTA) services to soldiers in various theaters of operations around the world. The Hunter can also function as a communications relay, or as a weapons delivery platform.
Northrop managed to keep the drone in service for so long by continuously modernizing it, and boosting its performances. According to US Army records, this was the first drone it fielded in numbers. The MQ-5B is not the original design, but an upgraded, more recent version.
“This significant milestone is a credit to the sustained exceptional high levels of performance and technical expertise, dedication, professionalism and pride of all of our Northrop Grumman engineers, maintainers and operators,” says the manager of the Hunter program at Northrop, Rob Sova.