UAV Acquisitions Grow in Number, Cost

Unmanned aerial vehicles such as the Air Force’s Global Hawk have come to share more of the mission workload in recent military operations. As such, the Defense Department plans to spend more than $16 million in the development and procurement of more UAVs. According to a July 30 report by the Government Accountability Office, DoD must carefully balance trade-offs when determining which UAV programs should merit a share of that funding. Program changes have led to spending increases on three of 10 programs under development, GAO stated, because of changes in program requirements, system designs, and upgrades. Sometimes, GAO stated, the services save on costs and fulfill mission requirements by finding common grounds. Cases in point would include the Marine Corps’ decision to use the Army’s Shadow, rather than develop its own unique UAV, and the Navy adapting Global Hawk for its Broad Area Maritime Surveillance system. But the Army, in contrast, drew GAO’s scrutiny for developing a separate payload sensor for its Sky Warrior, even though “the sensor currently used on the Air Force’s Predator is comparable and manufactured by the same contractor.”