Australia will acquire eight Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft, with options on four more, and has committed to the acquisition of the Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton unmanned system.
The Poseidon had long been anointed as the manned Orion replacement under Air 7000 Phase 2B, with funding reportedly allocated as far back as 2006 and although Triton did not quite enjoy the same public surety, it was the benchmark for Phase 1B, the unmanned component.
Certainly the language used by Defence Minister, Senator David Johnston at the recent ADM Defence/Industry Congress in Canberra made it seem a safe bet.
Australia needs to replace its ageing Lockheed Martin AP-3C Orion fleet around the turn of the decade and the P-8A/MQ-4C mix of manned and unmanned platforms is, significantly, also being introduced to fulfil the US Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) requirement.
Deliveries of the first of eight Poseidons will begin in 2017 and continue through to 2021, with a decision on the four options to be made following the release of the Defence White Paper in March next year.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott made the Poseidon announcement in Canberra on February 21 and followed up with the Triton commitment in a joint statement with Defence Minister Johnston on March 13.
The commitment is however subject to the successful completion of the US Navy development program and the number to be acquired and their introduction into service date will also be linked to the White Paper and not announced until 2016.
According to the Prime Minister and Defence Minister, the Tritons will be based at RAAF Edinburgh in South Australia and will require $140 million of new facilities and infrastructure, around $100 million of which will be spent in South Australia.
ADM understands that RAAF Tindal, near Katherine has also been earmarked as a forward operating location.
Comment From Canberra
Senator Johnston foreshadowed the Triton announcement during his speech to the ADM Congress in Canberra in late February, in which he launched a report into unmanned systems by the Williams Foundation.
“In the last ten years we’ve seen the most phenomenal growth in unmanned aerial systems. We’ve been using ScanEagle in Iraq & Afghanistan for some long time, to assist our soldiers in ISR on the ground; we then moved to Shadow and more recently to the bigger platform of Heron. These have proved invaluable for us; these have actually saved lives,” he said.
“The White Paper will say much more about unmanned aerial systems. This (Williams) report is timely, it’s showing us where we need to be and of course you all know I’m a huge advocate of Triton. With our maritime frontier, we must have a cost-effective was of surveilling that (domain) full-time and in real-time.”
Later in the Congress, Deputy Chief of Air Force Air Vice Marshal Gavin Davies provided context to the maritime UAS capability envisioned by Air Force.
“Perhaps one of the most prolific changes we’ll see in air force ISR will be in the maritime domain. Introduction of the Triton Maritime UAS, or equivalent, will change the way we do our maritime surveillance. With an endurance of up to 40 hours, we’ll be able to surveille more ocean, more often,” he noted.
“We’ll be able to provide surveillance overwatch for maritime task forces for periods far longer than we’ve previously been able to do. In consequence, with the P-8A, it will provide a maritime response capability exceeding what we are capable of today.”
As far as timing for introduction of a Triton-like capability is concerned, AVM Davies indicated that the AP-3C will need to leave service very early in the next decade.
“At the moment there is a two-year bed-down period (for P-8A), so 2017 to 2019. At the moment, there will be a further two years before the UAS element of that (AP-3C) retirement occurs,” he said.
Triton Program Update
Northrop Grumman and the US Navy’s Persistent Unmanned Aircraft Systems Project Office (PMA-262) flew the 10th Triton test flight from Palmdale, California on February 5th, with a ten hour-plus mission to expand the flight envelope during the initial Systems Design & Development (SDD) phase.
Mike Mackey, Triton program manager for Northrop Grumman said two further test flights were required for envelope expansion between February and June, after which test activities will be transferred to Naval Air Station Patuxent River on the US east coast. Two further SDD test aircraft will join the test program during the year.
Testing of the communications system software (v.2.1) is currently being run in the laboratory ahead of installation in time to support the cross-country ferry flight to Patuxent River. The mission system software (v.2.2) is due to be uploaded in the August-September timeframe. A further software build (v.3.0) will deliver the full operational capability sometime in 2015.
In parallel, the Multi-function Active Sensor (MFAS) radar has completed over 33 flights aboard a company-owned Gulfstream to further reduce risk.
The US Navy BAMS program of record is for 68 Tritons, adequate to maintain five orbits (each with four aircraft) around the globe for a sustained period of time, with sufficient reserve for maintenance and attrition. The US Navy operational test period will run through to the end of fiscal year 2017, at which point two aircraft will be handed to the fleet to begin operations.
Disclaimer: The writer travelled to the US as a guest of Northrop Grumman
