Global Hawks in Australia

[Jaryd stock]

THE US military has been launching spy drones from the Edinburgh air force base near Adelaide for several years, it has emerged.
The use of the suburban base for US spy drone operations from 2001 to at least 2006 was discovered by a group of amateur aviation buffs, who monitored at least 10 take-offs or landings of the giant $200 million Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles.
Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Andrew Davies said he was puzzled as to why the US Department of Defence was using an Australian military base for Global Hawk operations.
"These things stay airborne for a very long time," Mr Davies, a former Defence intelligence analyst, said. "It begs the question of why weren't they flying from an American base in either Guam, if they were interested in the western Pacific, or Diego Garcia, if they were interested in the Indian Ocean."


Mr Davies said the Global Hawks, which were the largest and most expensive drones ever built, acted as low-level satellites and currently lacked the capability to monitor ship movements in disputed areas such as the South China Sea.
"At various times around the world people who the US has been trying to keep tabs on have known when the satellites are going to be moving overhead, and have simply stopped moving at that point," Mr Davies said.
"What a Global Hawk does is give you a fairly persistent ability to fill in those gaps."
Defence has confirmed to the ABC's Foreign Correspondent program that the Global Hawks have used the Edinburgh base for "replenishment purposes".
However, Defence did not respond to detailed questions from The Australian yesterday.
While the operation of the aircraft in Australia has been kept under wraps since an initial demonstration flight in 2001, the West Beach Aviation Group in Adelaide had photographed take-offs and landings, as well as listening in to radio chatter.
Group vice-president Paul Daw said the aircraft usually took off and landed at night-time.
"If ever we saw an American transport (plane), usually a C-141 Starlifter, come in and unload a couple of shipping containers, we guessed that it was unloading the command and control base for the Global Hawk," he said yesterday.
Mr Daw said one of the group members would listen to radio scanners for about 20 hours a day, and called other members when he thought a drone would make a landing.
"Because of the type of call-sign and flight path used by the pilot, we knew it was Global Hawk coming in," he said.
Mr Daw said he did not expect to find out what missions were carried out by the aircraft after they left Australia.
Australian National University military and security expert John Blaxland, a 30-year army veteran, said the US Department of Defence might have used Australian airspace and landing on RAAF bases as a marketing ploy.
"The Americans have been trying to get us to buy them, so they've had good reasons to bring them out here and market them to us," Dr Blaxland said. "Who knows exactly was going on there, but there is definitely a commercial dimension to the issue."

[Jaryd stock]

Above article courtesy of the Australian.

[Bob C]

Hi Jaryd

I didn't hear the interview but have met Paul Daw on several occasions and have often corresponded with him as he has also been the long time Moderator of the highly regarded Oz-spotters group in addition to his involvement with WBAG.

Your first sentence states......"THE US military has been launching spy drones from the Edinburgh air force base near Adelaide for several years, it has emerged....."

Does that mean the operation is still happening ?

Cheers

Bob

[Jaryd stock]

Hi Bob, I just cut and passed the article of the Australian newspaper website mate, so I'd say that they are trying to beef up the story a bit.

I remember Australian Aviation I think it was, that reported that the Global Hawk had been in Australia a few times after it's initial sales pitch tour it did in 2001.
And I think it was sevrel times up to 2006 it came in.

I just put it on here if no one had read it or seen it on the ABC, it's not a big issue I think, I reckon the media are making a moutain out of a molehill after the announcement last year of increased military participation between US and Oz..

[A McLaughlin]

When I was at Australian Aviation I vaguely remember reporting in around 07/08 that the Global Hawks had been transiting Edinburgh for years on their way to and from the Middle East.

I believe the reasons explained to me was because it was easier in regards to airspace restrictions if they flew over the Indian and Pacific Oceans back to their bases in California.

[Jaryd stock]

From Gizmodo Australia:

As if the new data retention proposals weren’t enough to get you breaking out your tin foil hat, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) has revealed that it wants to put seven massive surveillance UAV drones into active service by 2019.

A report by the ABC into Australia’s drone capability reveals that the RAAF in its latest Defence Capability Plan brought forward the plan to deploy drones into Australian airspace by three years after eight years of um-ing and ah-ing by previous governments and opposition parties.

The drone that the Air Force wants to put into service is the MQ4C Triton from Northrop Grumman — an aircraft that can fly at a maxiumum speed of over 600kph for a total time of 28 hours. Extrapolating those figures gives you a theoretical total distance covered per flight session of over 15,000 kilometres.

The cost of the nine drones? Between $2 billion and $3 billion. That’s about $200 million per drone.

The RAAF says these aircraft will be used in naval exercises. That is, finding asylum seeker boats and patrolling the borders for illegal fishing.

The Triton is certainly a terrifying looking vehicle, one that the US Navy plans to put into service as early as 2015. The ABC reports that the Americans have 68 of them on order, and many of them will be based in Australian-controlled territory. That is, islands off the coast of Western Australia.

[Bob C]

"......The Triton is certainly a terrifying looking vehicle, one that the US Navy plans to put into service as early as 2015. The ABC reports that the Americans have 68 of them on order, and many of them will be based in Australian-controlled territory.

That is, islands off the coast of Western Australia....."

Like where - Rottnest or somewhere THOUSANDS of miles off the coast?

More information please.

[Bob C]

Following on from my previous post, the purchase of large drones for the RAAF has long been on the agenda as the RAAF seeks to replace its fleet of 20 (original number) of P3C Orions.

I believe that 8 P8A Poseidons are high on the list but 8 airframes replacing 20 hardly seems enough. Hence the desire for unmanned drones which I guess can stay aloft longer and cover much larger areas that several P3 sorties.

Speaking of drones, I'd also like to see a fleet of 36 Predators, at least, to be used in an offensive role if required.