News Review: Northrop Grumman 'lays the keel' for US Navy's 1st BAMS Global Hawk | ADM Oct 2010

Northrop Grumman has started manufacturing the first MQ-4 Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Unmanned Aircraft System (BAMS UAS) fuselage at its company’s Moss Point, Mississippi, manufacturing facility.

This introduces another variant of the RQ-4 Global Hawk High Altitude, Long Endurance (HALE) unmanned aircraft system platform; the Global hawk is a contender for the RAAF’s multi-mission UAS under Phase 1B of Project Air 7000, which has been deferred until later this decade.

“We are no longer a paper tiger as we begin construction on the jig load today,” Captain Bob Dishman, BAMS UAS program manager said during the event.

“As we continue with the airframe critical design review, we will be focusing on the production of this hardware.

“Our goal is to continue making early design decisions that will allow us to maintain schedule and deliver this capability to the warfighter as quickly as possible.”

The Northrop Grumman BAMS UAS is a multi-mission maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) system that will be able to provide a continuous on-station presence while conducting open-ocean and littoral surveillance of targets, minimizing the need to utilize other manned assets to execute surveillance and reconnaissance tasks.