Hunter II

Hunter is a short-range, multi-mission unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed in partnership between Northrop Grumman and IAI in the early 1990s. In the mid 1990s the US Army acquired the RQ-5A Hunter to conduct reconnaissance missions. Since then this UAV evolved accepting new payloads and expanding its role spectrum. Currently, Hunters are suitable for surveillance, reconnaissance, target-acquisition, artillery adjustment, damage assessment missions. The French and Belgian Armies also purchased the Hunter to perform tactical reconnaissance. Belgium's Hunters are an upgraded variant called the B-Hunter and manufactured by the Belgian Eagle Consortium. Hunter take off and landing are done in a conventional way on the runway. In addition, assisted by a rocket/booster Hunter can execute a short take off and emergency landing by a built-in parachute. Real time communication between the ground control station and the UAV can be bone through line-of-sight data link or beyond line-of-sight data link which requires an airborne data relay. Standard payload includes CCD-TV and IR sensors that can be replaced/complemented by Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) or any other payload furnished by the end customer. The Hunter system conducted successfully combat missions with US Army in the Balkans (1990s) and Iraq (2003-?). Hunter II was developed by Northrop-Grumman to meet the requirements of the US Army Extended-Range/Multi-Purpose (ERMP) UAV System which finally led to Predator/Warrior development. Hunter is based on IAI's Heron Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) UAV. Hunter II was designed to provide unprecedented, persistent, real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, communications relay and an integrated weapons capability to Army's commanders. The Hunter II UAV mated the Heron airframe with technologies and subsystems developed by Northrop-Grumman for other programs. Hunter II builds upon legacy of RQ-5 Hunter which has logged more than 32,000 flight hours and about 13,000 over theater of operations such as Iraq and the former Yugoslavia. Automatic take off and landing subsystem, modern avionics used on the MQ-5B Hunter and the Shadow ground control system are the main features provided by Northrop-Grumman to Hunter II. Other members of Northrop Grumman's Hunter II team included: Aurora Flight Sciences, Manassas, Virginia, which provided vehicle design support and manufacture the air vehicles at its Starkville, Mississippi, facility; CAS Inc, Huntsville, Alabama, which provided client-based knowledge of weapons, integration, performance-based logistics, and engineering test and evaluation; and Cubic Defense Applications, San Diego, which provided advanced interoperable data links.

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