NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.–Air Force and Navy cooperation on a high-altitude drone project could lead to hundreds of millions of dollars in savings over the life of the effort, the Navy’s program manager for the new aircraft said this week.
We have already saved $4 billion in investments on [research and development] just by leveraging what the Air Force has done” with the RQ-4 Global Hawk remotely piloted surveillance aircraft, said Capt. Bob Dishman.
Dishman is the program manager for the marinized version of the platform, the MQ-4 Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) plane. Northrop Grumman [NOC] is the prime contractor on both programs.
Although the two platforms are designed to meet service-specific requirements, similarities in the airframes and functionality warrant a joint effort to achieve maximum efficiency, service officials have said in the past (Defense Daily, July 2, 2010).
For example, Dishman said, the Navy and Air Force are cooperating on everything from training facilities to sharing of maintenance personnel. The Navy has even funded a portion of the military construction costs for the two fleets at Beale AFB, Calif.
“This is something that has never been done before” in U.S. military aviation, Dishman noted. Despite the fact that the military services often fly the same aircraft model, they have never cooperated to the extent seen on the Global Hawk and BAMS programs, according to Dishman.
“It would be great if there was a blueprint for us to follow on this, but we’re really working it from scratch,” he said. ?We’re breaking new ground here.”
He was speaking at the Navy League’s annual Sea, Air, Space symposium here.
Navy and Air Force officials have also been meeting every few weeks as a “synergies working group” to keep apprised of developments and discuss new cooperation opportunities.
“We’re pretty much joined at the hip on this,” Dishman said.
Meanwhile, BAMS last month passed a Critical Design Review, which provided a “comprehensive understanding of the program’s risks as the MQ-4C progresses to its next major milestone,” Dishman said. The system’s next milestone, a ?test readiness review,” is expected to begin this fall.
Further, the first two unfinished BAMS fuselages are poised for delivery to Northrop Grumman’s facility in Palmdale, Calif., for final assembly, said Steve Enewold, the company’s manager for BAMS. The review and fuselage deliveries put the program on track for first flight sometime next year, Enewold said.
“Now the program will shift its attention to integration and test,” Dishman said.