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USAF Seeks Heavy Lift to Recover Crashed Drone

By James T. McKenna | July 5, 2017

Unmanned

Global Hawk. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Air Force

The U.S. Air Force is seeking heavy-lift helicopter help to recover a pricey, sophisticated reconnaissance drone that crashed in California’s Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains June 21.
USAF solicited bids for a helicopter to recover debris more than a week after the RQ-4 Global Hawk, priced at more than $227 million, crashed near Mount Whitney, California, on a return flight to Beale AFB in that state after repairs at Edwards AFB north of Los Angeles.

The June 30 solicitation said the service wants a helicopter capable of lifting dispersed wreckage (weighing up to 12,000 pounds) from elevations between 9,000 and 12,000 feet and delivering it to a shipping site about four miles away. The solicitation said the “optimal” aircraft is a Sikorsky or Erickson S-64, but noted other aircraft with the required capabilities include the Sikorsky S-61 and S-65 (or CH-53).
A site visit is planned for July 6.
Built by prime contractor Northrop Grumman, the Rolls Royce F137-RR-100-powered drone has a 130.9-foot wingspan and is 47.6 feet long and 15.3 feet high. It has a maximum takeoff weight of 32,250 pounds (including a 3,000-pound payload) and can carry 17,300 pounds of JP-8 fuel.
The Air Force seeks bids for a five-day week of 12-hour days and said crews of the contractor selected should be prepared to deal "with sharp edges and needle-like protrusions and possible inhalation hazards" (but no exotic composite fiber) and up to up to 2,000 pounds of JP-8.
"The main impact site is over granite and was on fire," the solicitation said, so onboard hydraulic fluids and lubricants “may have burned in the fire and are not expected to be present in significant quantities.”
However, an optical lens on the Global Hawk is impregnated with thorium, a radioactive material used to enhance optical properties. “If the lens has been burned or it has been melted,” the solicitation said, “the potential for alpha radiation exposure is higher.”
The crashed RQ-4 was assigned to the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale. The Air Force said the accident is under investigation.