BAMS In Action Over Iranian Coast

Photo: Northrop Grumman

Two years after extensive tests in Middle East, the US Navy’s customised RQ-4 Global Hawk, known as BAMS (Broad Area Maritime Surveillance), is now operating with a carrier task force at sea.

Circling above the task force, at 22,500 meters (70,000 feet), BAMS is monitoring sea traffic off the Iranian coast and the Straits of Hormuz. The BAMS aircraft fly a 24 hour sortie every three days. The first production BAMS will be available in six months, and these models will begin entering service in three years.

In 2009, the BAMS test consisted of 60 flights and over 1,000 hours in the air. The flights were over land and sea areas, even though the UAS sensors are designed mainly to perform maritime reconnaissance. U.S. Air Force Global Hawk maintenance personnel assisted the Navy in tending to the Navy RQ-4 while it was on the ground, and for landings and takeoffs. The UAS was operated by navy personnel back in the United States at Patuxent River Naval Air Station. A year earlier, the Navy began training four of its personnel (three P-3 pilots and one civilian) to operate RQ-4s. The four Navy operator trainees were in an accelerated course (four months instead of five) and were available to help fly US Air Force RQ-4s before the navy RQ-4s test model became operational in 2009. The Air Force could use the help, as the RQ-4s have been in the air for 30,000 hours over the last decade. The rate of use is accelerating. The Navy plans to buy 20 BAMS and 117 P-8As to replace 250 P-3Cs. This replacement is supposed to be complete in about a decade. The new surveillance aircraft provide more information over a wider area.

The U.S. Air Force and Navy are buying the B version of the RQ-4 Global Hawk UAVs, at a cost of over $60 million each. This version is larger (wingspan is 5 meters/15 feet larger, at 42.2 meters/131 feet, and it’s nine percent longer at 15.5 meters/48 feet) than the A model, and can carry more equipment. To support that, there’s a new generator that produces 150 percent more electrical power. The RQ-4 has a range of over 22,000 kilometers and a cruising speed of 650 kilometers an hour.

The first three RQ-4Bs entered service in 2006. The B version is supposed to be a lot more reliable. Early A models tended to fail and crash at the rate of once every thousand flight hours.

Source: Strategy Page