 The 1969 shootdown of an EC-121 SIGINT aircraft by the North Koreans led to the development of the "Combat Dawn" Firefly variant, and the 2001 incident led to widespread discussion of adopting a similar strategy to ensure that the problem would not arise again.While the Global Hawk does not have the payload capability to replace a large SIGINT aircraft like the EP-3, it would provide an interim solution if nothing else were available.The Global Hawk SIGINT payload is now a high priority.