Sea Power: BAMS still alive, says NG | ADM April 2012

Julian Kerr | Sydney

Although Australia decided in 2009 not to participate in the design and development phase of the Global Hawk-based Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) program despite earlier involvement, prime contractor Northrop Grumman is confident of continuing Australian interest in the capability.

BAMS Business development leader Walt Kreitler pointed out that the MQ-4C contained a number of important capabilities specified by the RAAF and said it remained the obvious choice to provide surveillance over Australia’s huge economic exclusion zone.

“We and the US Navy continue to engage with the RAAF (on BAMS) at a number of levels and will always respond to any requests for information or assistance,” Kreitler told ADM.

“We’re hopeful that the (US) Department of Defence will decide in mid-2013 to begin full-rate production of the 68 MQ-4Cs intended for the USN and if required we could probably get an initial delivery to Australia in January 2016.”

Although the current Defence Capability Plan does not anticipate a decision until 2019 on acquisition of high altitude, long endurance UAVs, there’s increasing speculation that this decision may be advanced to 2014.

This would facilitate the UAVs’ originally-intended role in Australian service of complementing the eight Boeing P-8A multi-mission maritime aircraft that are expected to complete replacing the RAAF’s 18 AP-3C maritime patrol aircraft by 2018.