Page 34 - Australian Defence Magazine July-August 2022

34 DEFENCE BUSINESS
AIR 7003
JULY-AUGUST 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
– for its border protection operations in northern Australia. The ABF had presumably hoped to leverage the Air 7003 pro- gram but the cancellation now leaves its plans high and dry.
There is also growing interest in the anti-submarine war- fare (ASW) capabilities of the MQ-9B, particularly from the US Navy, in order to reduce the fatigue impact on its P-8A Poseidon fleet – something that arguably also has ap- plicability in Australia.
MULTI-DOMAIN OPERATIONS
While the original requirements for the project that ulti- mately became Air 7003 grew out of ADF operations in Af-
LEFT: The industry team working towards delivering the MQ-9B capability was actively working on further enhancements to the aircraft and systems requested by Defence
intelligence (COMINT) systems, Embedded GPS/INS (EGI) systems with Selective Avail- ability Anti-Spoofing Modules (SAASM) and Leonardo’s SAGE electronic support mea- sures (ESM) systems.
This points to a littoral ISR capability far in excess of the original land surveillance requirements and GA-ASI have been further developing the platform to include the ASW role, as well as integration of maritime strike weapons such as Kongsberg’s Joint Strike Missile (JSM) and even the Lockheed Mar- tin AGM-158B JASSM-ER weapon.
In April 2021 the US Navy conducted Exer- cise Integrated Battle Problem 21 (IBP21) off the coast of southern California, which tested unmanned sys- tems – including the MQ-9B – in an integrated battle group scenario. During the exercise, the MQ-9B was not only able to perform the submarine tracking task – using sonobuoys and other assets – and ELINT/SIGINT missions, but reportedly acted as the force net controller, using a full version of Link 16. During the exercise the aircraft reportedly held station while three serial P-8A missions were conducted, with time on sta-
tion to spare.
At the recent Indo Pacific exhibition in Sydney, GAASI dem-
onstrated a concept it is working on for the US Marine Corps to allow MQ-9 operations from the deck of the Navy’s ‘flat top’ amphibious ships. The concept uses a ‘bolt on-off’ short
ghanistan – a need for persistent overwatch with a platform that could actually engage threats on the ground – the current MQ-9B is capable of fulfilling many more roles.
Army still has the requirement for persistent overwatch, but it is also moving towards long- range strike capabilities – as noted in Defence’s justification for the cancellation of Air 7003 – and the persistent targeting capability inher- ent in SkyGuardian would seem to have been a no-brainer. While Army still has its Land 129 Phase 5 program for a range of unmanned systems, the complementary capabilities of the MQ-9B will be missed for the truly long- range strike missions – something that is being played out every day in Ukraine.
of land forces
When Australia received Congressional approval to pur- chase the MQ-9B in April 2021, equipment requested in- cluded a Leonardo 7500Ev2 multi-mode maritime active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, together with Automatic Identification System (AIS) system, Raytheon AN/DAS-4 Multi-Spectral Targeting Systems (MST-D) electro-optic infra-red (EO/IR) sensors, GA-ASI AN/APY- 8 Lynx Synthetic Aperture Radars with Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) capability, Rio Communications
The opportunities offered by a family of MQ-9B aircraft therefore span a major range of operations, from maritime surveillance and fishery patrols to targeting for long-range fires and even high-end ASW. Of course, the sustainment synergies associated with a common platform across Air Force, Border Force and perhaps even the RAN, are obvious – as is the potential for supporting other
aircraft in the region.
It would appear that by cancelling Air 7003, Australia
has denied itself these possibilities and it is hoped the new government reviews the decision carefully. ■
“THE COMPLEMENTARY CAPABILITIES OF THE MQ-9B WILL BE MISSED FOR THE TRULY LONG- RANGE STRIKE MISSIONS – SOMETHING THAT IS BEING PLAYED OUT EVERY DAY IN UKRAINE”
take-off and landing (STOL) wing and new tail surfaces but is otherwise a standard MQ- 9B. The idea is to provide an amphibious task group with persistent surveillance and strike capability anywhere in the world and although the relatively ‘draggy’ STOL wing confers a performance penalty, endurance is reportedly still in the 16-20 hours timeframe (about two thirds of the standard configuration).
ADM understands that initial studies have shown the concept capable of operat- ing from the decks of Navy’s two Canberra- class LHDs.
GA-ASI