Deal for high altitude UAVs likely

An agreement or announcement to this effect is likely when U.S. President Barack Obama visits India as the chief guest for the Republic Day ceremony next month, sources informed The Hindu.

Undated file photo courtesy of the U.S. Navy shows a RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle conducting tests over Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. An unarmed U.S. Navy drone aircraft crashed on Monday during a test flight in Maryland, plummeting into a marsh area around the Chesapeake Bay without injuring anyone or causing property damage, the Navy said. The cause of the crash of the unmanned spy plane was under investigation, a Navy spokesman said. The incident took place near Bloodsworth Island, about 70 miles southeast of Washington DC, at around noon. REUTERS/U.S. Navy/Erik Hildebrandt/Northrop Grumman/Handout (UNITED STATES - Tags: MILITARY) FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS

India and the U.S. are negotiating a deal for the purchase of high altitude, long endurance (HALE) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV).

An agreement or announcement to this effect is likely when U.S. President Barack Obama visits India as the chief guest for the Republic Day ceremony next month, sources informed The Hindu .

Though the variant and the numbers are not known, it has been learnt that the UAV in question is most likely the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk, a non-combat drone and the largest unmanned aircraft system built by the U.S.

Global Hawk is a HALE Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) with extraordinary intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, providing near-real time, high resolution imagery of large geographical areas both during the day and night, in all types of weather.

The Global Hawk has an endurance of over 24 hours and can operate at an altitude of 60,000 feet. The U.S. has extensively deployed it in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It has further been upgraded as the MQ-4C Triton maritime surveillance platform for the U.S. Navy.