of 2,000 hours before reaching initial operating capability. The second MQ-4C Triton model flew on 16 October 2014, 17 months after the first model's first flight. It is being prepped to perform the cross-country flight later in the month that the first aircraft performed the previous month. A third model is also being prepared to start flights; the third was planned to be funded by the Navy but was lost to budget cuts, so Northrop Grumman decided to self-fund production of the third prototype. Fleet operational evaluation and introduction On 7 February 2013, the U.S. Navy announced that it would initiate the Unmanned Patrol Squadron Nineteen (VUP-19) at NAS Jacksonville, Florida on 1 October 2013, to eventually operate the MQ-4C as the Navy's first Triton squadron. A detachment of VUP-19 will also be established at NAS Point Mugu, California. VUP-19 will fall under the administrative control of Commander, Patrol and Reconnaissance Wing ELEVEN (CPRW-11) at NAS Jacksonville, where an MQ-4C mission control facility is also under construction, and will initially operate the Triton on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions for the U.S. 5th Fleet in the Southwest Asia/Middle East/East Africa region, the U.S. 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic, the U.S. 7th Fleet in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean, and U.S. Fleet Forces Command in western Atlantic operations. In 2014, the Navy will activate a second Triton squadron, VUP-11, to take over operations in the Pacific in support of U.S. 7th Fleet and share U.S. 5th Fleet operations with VUP-19. On 17 November 2015, the MQ-4C began a two-month operational assessment that will determine Milestone C approval and the start of low-rate initial production. In February 2016 the U.S. Navy confirmed that the MQ-4C had completed Operational Assessment, putting the Triton in line to achieve a Milestone C decision in spring 2016, leading to low rate production. An integrated test team made up of Navy personnel from Air Test and Evaluation Sqdns. VX-1 and VX-20, Unmanned Patrol Sqdn., VUP-19 and Northrop Grumman demonstrated Triton's reliability over approximately sixty flight hours. The Navy's fiscal 2017 budget request includes 19 MQ-4 Tritons through fiscal 2021, with first deployment to the Pacific in fiscal 2017. The tests evaluated the MQ-4C's key sensors – an active electronically scanned array radar, an electro-optic/infrared camera and a hydrocarbon detector – over different altitudes and ranges, analysing the "system’s ability to classify targets