Defence most likely going for Triton drone

Defence will most likely get the Triton drone.

The Triton is also a U.S. Navy effort. Note the following:

The Triton UAS, part of the Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance UAS developmental program, is a specially engineered maritime variant of the Air Force’s RQ-4B Global Hawk platform, Navy officials explained.

“The modifications include anti/de-ice, bird strike and lightning protection to meet planned mission profiles and a due regard radar for safe separation from other aircraft,” Hoke added.

The anti/de-ice and lighting protection technologies, which include a reinforced fuselage and wing, are being engineered into the MQ-4C Triton as part of the maritime requirements for its range of anticipated mission sets, Navy and industry officials said.

That is important because the USAF Global Hawk was seriously weather limited.

A substantial amount of the intel on the Hermit Kingdom comes from the three massive Global Hawk unmanned surveillance planes based at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. Because of special flight restrictions, the Global Hawks can’t fly over thunderstorms, nor, without a way to see the clouds ahead, can they go around them. So whenever a hint of bad weather arose on the route Global Hawk was assigned last year from Guam, the missions were canceled. Last year, the UAVs were grounded for an entire month, says a source with knowledge of the operation.

This susceptibility to South Pacific cyclones is adding new energy to the political hurricane raging in Washington over the future of the expensive UAVs.

It’s been a year and a half since the Air Force said it no longer needs the Global Hawk. The service argued that the UAVs, each built for more than $200 million, don’t do their jobs as well as the time-tested U-2 manned spy plane. So the Air Force wants to take the entire fleet of 18 Global Hawks and park them in the “boneyard” — the aircraft storage facility at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz. That’s the functional equivalent of throwing 135 tons of the world’s most advanced robotic flying machines into the trash heap.

You know, there was a time when the USAF had lots of engineers to write up requirements and check industry.

No more.