i think i found a drone - FORTE10

FORTE10
Hex: AE5420

i cant tell you where this is as Everything on the map is in a different language on the other side of the world ---

Reg.:
10-2045
United States

DB flags:
military
Type:Q4

NORTHROP GRUMMAN
RQ-4 Global Hawk

Type Desc.:
L1J

Squawk:
1477

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ae5420

I found a picture of it at the Grumman link below
https://www.northropgrumman.com/wp-content/uploads/Global-Hawk-Hero2.jpg?w=1536

 

following the drone and it looks like its heading towards bulgaria at 01:13 eastern u.s. time

it started off in southern italy east of scordia

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ae5420

 

it stopped tracking over the black sea area east of burgas bulgaria 02:22 hrs u.s. eastern time 12/16/22

 

FORTE10 is a common callsign for the RQ-4s operating out of Sigonella. FORTE11 and UAVGH000 also show up periodically. The usual patrols are from Sigonella over Greece & Bulgaria into the Black Sea where it will do elongated east-west (ish) loops (presumably checking out southern Ukraine, Crimea and southern Russia) before retracing it's steps back to base.

Another route has it hanging a left turn over Bulgaria and flying up the eastern flank of NATO to the Baltic and back.

They're often up for 24+ hours from what I can determine (a few hours ingress & egress and 12+ hours patrolling).

I'm sure others on here or the OSINT folks on Twitter have much more knowledge about this than I do. I'm more of a casual observer.

 

^ ^ ^ ^

Back to NAS Sigonella an hour ago.

 

You can change the map layer to make the map all English. Use the layer button.

 

if not using the UAVGH designation - FORTE is the USAF Callsign for pretty much any RQ-4B Flight

 

And I think the UAVGH callsign are the NATO RQ-4s. There's one up right now and it's registration is listed as Italy.