Thirteen-Years a UAS

The U.S. Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Demonstrator (BAMS-D) is a high-altitude, remotely-piloted surveillance aircraft built by Northrop Grumman. The vehicle is the Naval iteration of the U.S. Air Force’s celebrated Global Hawk.

Originally acquired by the Navy for purpose of developing doctrine and concepts of operations for large, persistent unmanned air vehicles, the BAMS-D has aided the service in refining tactics, techniques and procedures specific to the maritime environment.

In 2009, the Navy deployed BAMS-D for a six-month concept demonstration in the Fifth Fleet—a command comprising the U.S. Navy’s principal presence in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. The mission was extended dramatically, however, as the region’s sociopolitical landscape grew increasingly complex and volatile.

2022 marks the thirteenth-year and long-overdue conclusion of the BAMS-D’s mission. During its protracted deployment, the robust vehicle accumulated north of 42,500 flight hours over 2,069 oceanic missions which, altogether, accounted for more than fifty-percent of the U.S.’s in-theater maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR).

Over the course of its deployment, the BAMS-D’s capabilities were ramped-up at a remarkable rate. By 2013, the UAV was carrying-out fifteen 24-hour missions every month. Throughout the next nine-years, BAMS-D operated nigh continuously, collecting  almost 1.4 million ISR scenes, highlighting over 11,500 targets of interest, and providing the Fifth Fleet over fifteen-thousand tactical reports.

Among the vehicle’s notable achievements was an August 2021 operation during which it provided ISR coverage to non-combatant evacuation operations during the U.S.’s forfeiture and shameful retreat from Afghanistan.

On 17 June 2022, the BAMS-D quietly returned from the Fifth Fleet to its home-base at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, MD—thereby bringing to an end military history’s longest UAS mission. The vehicle landed at Pax River shortly after 14:00 EDT, and was welcomed home by a team of military, civilian, and contractor personnel.

BAMS-D deputy program manager Dave Seagle stated: “Despite the aging of the system and limited spares available, BAMS-D’s incredible operations and maintenance team achieved an overall mission availability rate of 96 percent, with more than 94 percent of scheduled missions completed.”

The Navy’s newest UAS— MQ-4C Triton—is currently being upgraded with multi-intelligence capability. The service expects to field the system in 2023.

FMI: www.navy.mil