Northrop Grumman [NOC] has rolled out the first production aircraft of the Navy’s version of Global Hawk, an unmanned aerial vehicle designed to perform wide-area maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions.
Northrop Grumman unveiled the Navy’s MQ-4C “Triton” yesterday at its manufacturing facility in Palmdale, Calif. The high-flying, long endurance aircraft is the first of 68 the service plans to buy under the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance, or BAMS, program.
The first Triton is one of two MQ-4Cs the Navy has procured under a $1.16 billion contract awarded to Northrop Grumman in 2008.
Rear Adm. Bill Shannon, the program executive officer for Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons at Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), said in a statement provided by Northrop Grumman that the unveiling marked a “significant” day for the BAMS team.
“The work they have done and will continue to do is critical to the future of naval aviation,” he said. “Their efforts will enable the BAMS system to provide the fleet a game-changing persistent maritime and littoral intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability.”
Navy officials have said BAMS will play a crucial role in the service’s ability to monitor vast ocean space, and have cited the UAV to thwart criticism that the size of ship fleet has shrunk considerably from the more than 500 at the end of the Cold War. The Navy currently has 283 active ships with plans to increase that number to 300 by 2019.
The Navy has been operating five BAMS-Demonstrators acquired from the Air Force’s Global Hawk program in 2006 to develop tactics and doctrine for using the aircraft for ISR missions. One crashed Monday near Bloodsworth Island in Dorchester County, Md. (Defense Daily, June 12). The cause is under investigation, but no one was hurt and there was no property damage, NAVAIR said earlier this week.
The main feature of the Triton is a Northrop Grumman-built AN/ZPY-3 active electronically steered array multi-function active sensor (MFAS AESA) radar containing maritime and air-to-ground modes. MFAS offers 360 degree surveillance, Northrop Grumman said.
Triton refers to the Greek messenger of the sea and keeps with the Navy’s tradition of naming surveillance aircraft after Greek sea gods, Northrop Grumman said.