Costly Drone Is Poised to Replace U-2 Spy Plane

PALMDALE, Calif. — Tucked away here in the Mojave Desert, the assembly plant for the high-flying Global Hawk jet resembles a giant hobby shop.

Work tables surround a handful of fuselages, and an unusually long wing — needed to slip through the thin air at 60,000 feet — is ready to be bolted into place. Open panels await controls for cameras and eavesdropping gear, and bright blue tool bins and parts vats are scattered around the concrete floor.

Just 50 people work in the factory and a test hangar, and only five of the drones will be built this year. But despite a spate of delays, second-guessing and cost overruns, the Global Hawk is once again on track to replace one of America’s most noted aircraft: the U-2 spy plane, famed for its role in the cold war and more recently Afghanistan....

The U-2 was created in the 1950s to monitor Soviet nuclear sites. It is still used, as the Global Hawk will be, to supplement satellites by gazing into North Korea and Iran from outside their borders.

But the towering heights have also enabled the U-2 to survey so much territory in Afghanistan, and scoop up so many Taliban phone calls, that it has become one of the best sources of tips for where to send the Predator and Reaper drones, which fly at lower altitudes and fire missiles....