[Tyler]

Global Hawks in the crowded Mediterranean airspace
     


 


 The use of UAVs has skyrocketed, a wide variety of systems ranging from
extremely small flying bots to large airframes like
the Predators or Global Hawk drones is currently in use, mostly from
armed forces around the world. Despite this growth, UAVs in civil
airspace is a very rare sight with a lot of bureaucracy and strange
ramifications. During the Libya crisis many people who monitor aerial traffic as a hobby, report what is
going on from their twitter accounts (like @FMCNL from The
Netherlands). One of the most exotic planes for radio plane-spotters is
the RQ-4 Global Hawks based in southern Italy that operates in a very crowded
region. As David Cenciotti describes in his blog  they use special corridors and dedicated
climb/descent areas for proper deconfliction with other traffic while
specific notifications are also given to other aircrafts. The Global
Hawk as a system has two separate ground segments a Launch and Recovery
Element (LRE), and a Mission Control Element (MCE). When they are beyond
line of sight they are piloted via satellite link. However they carry
radio equipment that enable pilots working at the ground station to talk
as if they were on the aircraft. Air Traffic controllers communicate
with the virtual pilots in a similar way to the ones in human piloted
aircraft. The use of large UAVs (military and of course civilian)
inevitably will increase and they will communicate routinely like that
or in a more advanced stage they may be able to transmit messages on
their own.
   

http://robots.net/article/3130.html