Non-Subscriber Extract
High stakes: contestants jostle for BAMS UAV award
By Tara Copp
25 October 2007
With fewer ships at sea to provide round-the-clock maritime surveillance, a shrinking fleet of P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft, and the future P-8 Poseidon aircraft already committed to tracking increased submarine activity, the US Navy (USN) is looking to its Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) platforms to plug a gaping hole in its global coverage.
Industry has a lot to play for too, not least because the BAMS contract - which seeks to deliver a persistent surveillance capability by 2013 - will be worth an estimated USD3 billion to the winning team.
Contract award was originally due in October 2007, but the USN has pushed the announcement back to February 2008 so that it can gather more information from the three vendors heatedly competing for the prize: Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems; Boeing; and a collaborative effort between Lockheed Martin and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems.
Each is choosing a tried-and-tested air platform that the companies are adapting to meet specific maritime needs. Their strategies to win are distinct. Northrop Grumman is touting its leadership and breadth of experience in delivering unmanned systems; Boeing is pushing its experience gleaned from the Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) competition and the speed and heft of its chosen Gulfstream G550 executive aircraft; and Lockheed Martin and General Atomics are emphasising the Mariner drone's dexterity in dodging into and out of taskings.
International partner Australia joined the programme in January 2007 with Project Air 7000, to contribute to a future global fleet of BAMS assets. So far Australia has considered both Northrop Grumman's RQ-4N Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and Lockheed Martin/General Atomics' Mariner; the latter underwent trials in 2006 as part of Australia's Coastwatch programme.
The BAMS competition seeks up to 48 aircraft that would be based at five stations around the globe to provide 24-hours-a-day, worldwide simultaneous coverage. While it requires that each platform is able to maintain a 50,000 ft ceiling, the recurring need to fly below and penetrate cloud cover to deliver visual imagery of tracked targets also requires an agile, hardy airframe.
The winning system is expected to serve as an adjunct to the retiring P-3 fleet - capitalising on existing P-3 mission operators and systems architecture - before eventually working alongside the P-3's intended replacement, the P-8 Poseidon Multimission Maritime Aircraft (MMA). The workstations - a desktop computer, flat panels and storage racks for additional servers in most configurations - and the personnel that operate BAMS will probably be located alongside P-3 and P-8 systems, allowing the USN to maximise its aircrew resources.
Image: Boeing is offering a modified, unmanned version of the Gulfstream G550 executive aircraft as its BAMS platform. (Boeing)