Page 14 - Australian Defence Magazine Feb 2020

14 NEWS REVIEW INDUSTRY UPDATE
FEBRUARY 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
AIR AFFAIRS PROVIDES CRUCIAL BUSHFIRE RECONNAISSANCE
FIREFIGHTING agencies across the coun- try are battling a dramatic increase in the severity and frequency of bushfires due to the impact of the ongoing drought and adverse forecast weather conditions.
On any given day or night, high above the raging fires, a unique, high-tech “eye in the sky” keeps watch, working round the clock to provide critical fire intelligence imagery and mapping data to fire agencies.
This data provides an essential in- telligence capability to assist incident management teams to plan and deploy tactical firefighting assets. So far this season Air Affairs aircraft have scanned equivalent to 50 per cent of the total area of Australia.
Air Affairs Australia has provided Air- borne Bushfire Reconnaissance services throughout Australia since 1994. Since its first demonstrated capability in the summer of 1994-95, the service has been used extensively in this unique role.
Located in the Albatross Aviation Tech- nology Park next to HMAS Albatross near Nowra with access to the airfield, the air- craft are able to take off at short notice.
Established as a crucial element in Bushfire intelligence gathering, Fir- escan captures line scan imagery of bushfire activity, delivered during both day and night-time flight operations,
BELOW: A Firescan operator inside one of the Learjets during a mission.
provides imaging of the ground, clearly defining active fire and burnt terrain through dense smoke.
With many of these fast moving bush- fires, the need for rapid wide-area fire intelligence is logistically critical in sup- porting ground crews. The service also allows for monitoring remote area bush- fires. Images are transmitted directly from the aircraft via satellite to operation centres for near real-time utilisation.
“It is personally inspiring to see the significant efforts our crew and staff un- dertake every year to provide and deliver this important service in a challenging environment,” Chris Sievers, Chief Ex- ecutive Officer of Air Affairs Australia said. “We are proud to support our Fire- fighting Agency customers in their criti- cally important efforts to protect life and property. Firescan is an important part of our business, which we committed to 25 years ago with a vision of one day achiev- ing a national and international service.
“The Air Affairs team was estab- lished using aerial bushfire surveil- lance experts which I am extremely proud of. We must now grow together with the fire agencies to meet evolving environmentalchallenges,tomakecer- tain we continue to contribute to the community that relies so much on us. We are committed to work with govern- ments, both state and federal, to con- tribute our part of an evolving national aerial firefighting fleet.”
MQ-9B SKY GUARDIAN CHOSEN OVER REAPER
EWEN LEVICK | SYDNEY
THE government announced in late 2019 that it has down-selected the MQ-9B Sky Guardian re- motely piloted aircraft over the MQ-9A Reaper.
The next phase will focus on developing the $1.3 billion MQ-9B acquisition proposal, which is scheduled for government consider- ation in 2021-22.
“Cutting-edge technology of this kind, with advanced sensors and systems, would comple- ment advanced aircraft such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and ensure that ADF maintains state-of-the-art capability,” Minister for De- fence Linda Reynolds said.
“Local companies that provide a range of in- novative sensor, communication, manufactur- ingandlife-cyclesupportcapabilitieswillhave the opportunity to showcase their capabilities throughout this development process,” Minis- ter for Defence Industry Melissa Price said.
According to RAAF Director-General of Air Combat Capability Air Commodore Darren Goldie, the down-select means his team can now focus on what the acquisition will look like, providing advice to government on provisioning, aircraft numbers, cost profiles and more to in- form the acquisition decision in 2021-2022.
“MQ-9 is more about support to the land force and the littoral,” AIRCDRE Goldie told ADM. “So more customizable payloads, which are all about going after close electro-optic IR and signals intelligence.”
AIRCDRE Goldie also described the prima- ry difference between the two variants under consideration for the down-selection.
“The big difference between the MQ-9A and MQ-9B is that the MQ-9B is able to be certified to fly in civilian airspace,” AIRCDRE Goldie said. The main operator of the MQ-9B variant is the UK, which modified the aircraft and named it the ‘Protector’. ■
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