The Navy’s massive Triton drone just flew across the U.S. for the first time

The massive MQ-4C Triton maritime surveillance drone is expected to be operational in 2017.

The massive drone reached a new milestone Thursday, however. At 7:53 a.m., one of the 131-foot wide aircraft landed at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland following its first cross-country flight, the Navy said. The drone soared at heights of more than 50,000 feet at times; it departed from a facility in Palmdale, Calif., owned by its maker, Northrop Grumman, late Wednesday. It flew along the U.S.-Mexico border, over the Gulf of Mexico and across Florida before turning north up the Atlantic Coast.

Washington Post