Hawk eye in the sky:Australia ~ ASIAN DEFENCE

IN the opening scene of the 1970s television series M*A*S*H, a black-comedy-drama set during the Korean War, an H13 Sioux helicopter clatters over the Malibu Hills with its cargo of wounded soldiers carried on two side-mounted stretchers.Armed with sophisticated cameras and piloted by keyboard and mouse, the Global Hawk could play a potentially lifesaving role in a bushfire Fast forward to 2010 and imagine a roadside bomb explosion in Afghanistan. Combat medics radio for a casualty evacuation (casevac) helicopter for two seriously wounded soldiers. Within minutes a grey windowless chopper about the size of the Bell Sioux lands. The casualties are placed on two litters attached to hard points on the side of the chopper and off it hovers, without a pilot in sight. Welcome to the futuristic world of unmanned aerial vehicles. If you think a pilotless casevac is far-fetched, then think again.

Engineers at the US's second biggest aerospace company, Northrop Grumman, in conjunction with Israel's Rafael corporation, are already doing preliminary work on the MQ-8B Fire Scout for just such a capability. But the global financial crisis was this week cited as a factor in cabinet again deferring a decision on whether to proceed with a $US1billion ($1.5 billion) strategic UAV capability using the broad area maritime surveillance Global Hawk. The decision means that if Australia wants to re-enter the BAMS Global Hawk program in which it has already invested $US15 million, downstream costs are going to be higher.

RAAF Lockheed AP-3C Orion First introduced in the US in 1962 and upgraded in 2002 Unit cost: About $US38 million ($59.4 million) Crew: 13 RAAF fleet: 18 Length: 35.6m Wingspan: 30.8m Empty weight: 27,900kg Power plant: Four Allison turbo-prop engines; 3700kW each Max speed: 405 knots (750 km/h) Max altitude: 28,215ft (8600m) Range: 9000km High-resolution sensors, cameras and electro-optics

Global Hawk RQ-4 (maritime) Unit cost: About $US28 million (not including sensor suites) Crew: None Length: 13.5m Wingspan: 35.4m Gross take-off weight: 12,133kg Engine: One Rolls-Royce AE3007H (jet) Turbofan Loiter speed: 343 knots (635 km/h) Max altitude: 65,000ft (20,000m) Range: 22,000km Max endurance: 35 hours

High resolution sensors look through adverse weather, day or night, from 22,000m Following Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires there are some compelling reasons the federal Government should give serious consideration to signing up. On offer is a jet-powered pilotless aircraft, the Global Hawk, piloted by nothing more sophisticated than a keyboard and mouse. It comes with three other nodes: a launch and recovery system, mission control pod and a ground station used to process images received via an encoded radio and internet link. The Australian has had a rare opportunity to inspect the aircraft at the high-security Edwards Air Force Base test facility in California. Global Hawk's size is breathtaking. Its sleek long wings -- stretching half a football field in length -- will keep this high-altitude bird aloft at 20,000m where it can loiter for 33 hours, taking high-definition photographs using its suite of cutting-edge electro-optical and infra-red sensors.

Industry and government sources say the Australian Defence Force wants eight to 11 Global Hawks as part of the Government's requirement for a new BAMS capability to replace the ageing P3-C Orion surveillance planes. As a sweetener, Northrop Grumman promises plenty of work for Australian electronics manufacturers if Canberra signs up. The deal would give Australia an unrivalled unmanned surveillance capability in Asia, providing civil and military applications. In addition to defence intelligence gathering the UAV can provide early detection of people smugglers, illicit drug vessels, such as the North Korean heroin ship Pong Su, or foreign fishing boats poaching in the Top End.

Designed by Northrop Grumman as a replacement for the famous Cold War-era U2 spy plane, the aircraft has served with distinction in several war zones flying covert surveillance missions over Iraq and Afghanistan. Global Hawk's makers have also discovered some unintended features that equip it with a key firefighting role. Its ability to snoop over smoke-affected battlefields makes it an ideal choice for bushfire surveillance, features tested to good effect by US emergency authorities during last year's deadly Californian wildfires, says Northrop Grumman's Steve Enewold, vice-president of the Global Hawk program. "With one aeroplane, over the period of one night, we could surveil the entire southern Californian fires," he says. "It's not like you need a bunch of aeroplanes doing it. We got 300 to 400 pictures per flight, more pictures than people could look at. "So the bottom line is this aeroplane does have a lot of capability in the military application: it can find trucks, tanks, (people) movers and ships, and then pass that information to the main battle force and operational commanders. Now we've also found a lot of application for its use in the civilian world from a fires perspective." Whether used to take high-resolution photographs of the numberplates of suspected arsonists' vehicles or infra-red images of people stranded or trapped by fire, the sophisticated cameras on board the Global Hawk have a potential lifesaving role.

No early warning was available on February 7 that could have saved rural residents whose homes lay in the path of the monster Victorian fires. On Black Saturday temperatures of up to 46C, combined with high winds, stoked bushfires of unprecedented intensity that razed more than 2000 houses and killed more than 200 people. But during last year's deadly Californian wildfires Global Hawk saved lives. "Some of the other things that we learned is people don't like to leave. They like to protect their houses," Enewold says. "So we had an opportunity to fly over some areas the fire department said were evacuated but you can see here (pointing to infra-red images) there are cars, running hot, which means the people haven't left. We were actually able to redeploy some evacuation assets into these areas and get the people out." It's a view backed by a senior firefighter, San Diego fire chief Pete Sculley. "I am sure that if we had Global Hawk from the start we could have saved lives early on," he says."There was a second fire in Ramona that was masked by the first fire and we didn't warn people (about the second fire) because we didn't know it was there. Those people had no warning." Australia has been significantly involved in the BAMS-UAS program through a 26-month, $US15 million co-operative agreement with the US Navy, which chose the Global Hawk to meet its future maritime surveillance needs. But senior US defence officials based at the test and evaluation centre at the naval air station in Patuxent River, Maryland, tell The Australian that time is running out for Canberra to sign up to the BAMS Global Hawk program.

It's understood Australia wants a "ground moving target indicator" included among its capability options, a development that has also got the US Navy interested. But if Australia drops out and decides to buy in at a later date it will be hit with a heavy financial impost to cover development costs, officials warn. Ideally, the US Navy would like a decision from Canberra by June or July, a second pass approval requiring a $US100million contribution to the development kitty.

"The earlier Australia decides to join, the more synergies we will have with what the navy hopes to do," the US Navy's program manager for maritime unmanned aerial systems Bob Dishman says. "The sooner the program is aligned (with Australia and the US Navy) the better." And he has some advice for pilots worried they may be put out of a job by increasing interest in UAV capabilities. "These aircraft complement the work of a pilot; they're not putting them out of a job," says Dishman, a naval aviator. Defence is looking at options for a UAV capability, but the project has been troublesome. Last September, Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon cancelled a $150 million contract with Boeing to provide a UAV capability after repeated technical problems caused the project to fall two years behind schedule. But the Government says it remains committed to acquiring a UAV capability. "This Government wants nothing more than to get a UAV capability into theatre (Afghanistan) for the army where it is needed," Defence Procurement Secretary Greg Combet says. "This is important to counter emerging threats such as (improvised explosive devices), and the Government is currently investigating alternatives." Australia would benefit from the capabilities of a strategic UAV such as the Global Hawk but there may be a development risk with the radar system planned for the maritime variant, defence aviation commentator Trevor Thomas tells The Australian. While the US Air Force has successfully tested a terrestrial variant in Iraq and Afghanistan, work still needs to be completed on the sensor suite for the BAMS Global Hawk sought by Australia, Thomas says. "The risk with the BAMS Global Hawk, like other defence projects, is that the capability does not exist at the moment," he says. "The federal Government would have to risk a development process before it could actually assess the value of the system."

It's understood the Active Electronically Scanned Array radar to be fitted to the BAMS Global Hawk is still in the testing process of providing high-definition images of a moving sea surface, compared with dry land where it has been successfully tested. "The sensors are still in the development stage," Thomas says. "Both from a civil and national security perspective there is a growing demand for some type of strategic UAV with sensors capable of locating small boats on the sea to peering through the clouds to assess fire fronts." UAVs also could present a solution to the ADF's recruitment problems. Last week at the US Navy's Patuxent River facility, defence and civilian contractors successfully tested a key feature of another unmanned aerial vehicle, this time a helicopter. For the first time, an MQ-8B Fire Scout UAV was landed on the deck of an FFG frigate. While there is no requirement within the defence capability plan for an unmanned chopper, the Fire Scout could offer a cheap solution to plug the paucity of Australian naval helicopter assets in the wake of the $1.2billion Kaman Seasprite debacle. Based on the Schweizer aircraft, Fire Scout is designed to carry out surveillance missions, including targeting tasks and intelligence gathering. But stealthy it is not. "Yes, it's light and quiet, but not stealthy. You're not going to get a stealthy radar cross-section with a helicopter," US Navy Fire Scout program manager Tim Dunigan says.

But, according to company designers, the sky is the limit when it comes to developing further missions for this pilotless helicopter. Its workload soon will be expanded to include being armed with precision guided missiles, an ability to fire a lightweight torpedo, anti-submarine tracking and over-the-horizon targeting. "At the moment it is all about dull, dirty, dangerous assignments," Dunigan says. "Small (enemy) boats are what we're looking for. It's fleet protection, it's not going to go after cruisers or destroyers. But it would be an ideal candidate for anti-piracy."