We could convert them into high speed targets for the AWD's. Pop a couple for the trials of each of our four AWD's that way we would be splashing the last of them around 2020.

Expensive Target drones.

 

gf, was it in the contract that the USN will take them back? If not, will they even want them?

my understanding is that they are boomerangs.  in fact they've already picked up  knickname "Elvis" (as in "Return to Sender")

they are a bridging capability only. CoA and the Chief have made it pretty clear that they are interim and boomerangs. (both rode over the top of the BACC Senior uniform at Avalon to make that point in public - it was also reinforced at the NACC briefings).  So, unless an incoming Govt changes its fiscal mind, unless a new CDF and/or CAF change their minds, then these will be 21st Century Phantoms - going home again.

besides, by that time the USMC will have finally parked the last of their Prowlers and will be ready for backfill on spares. So either USN or USMC will be ready.  If they're shagged they'll spare them.  Otherwise DoD via the US State Dept will offer them up to other interested parties.

At 2025 we'll be looking at if not fielding armed UAV's (and it's already been interim ORBAT proposed)

The only reason I can see to keeping them is if we need to retain the Growlers  otherwise they will be a carcinogenic procurement embuggerance on the rest of Force acquisition.

How good are armed UAV's when it comes to pissing off into the middle of nothing (i.e. our Deserts) and finding something?

 

Forget the trip just to get there - dunno what the range on those things is, but I'm guessing we'd have to have bases everywhere to cover all the squares on our country.

 

That's of course we get all the Intel to tell us where the 'baddies' are in the first place.

 

Bottom line - can a UAV really replace a strike fighter/bomber when it comes to wide open spaces?

 

And can they land these things to bring them back from a 'rekkie' - or are they just dash and splash??

 

Beej :)

With one noticeable difference - Central Australia is MILES from anywhere else. Have you ever actually bothered to look at an Atlas?

Unlike the US, with 50+ States, we are a humble land of equivalent area with 6 States, and 2 Territories - 8 'Capitals' in the whole country, and places where it's a thousand miles+ in any direction to the nearest Capital.

So, back to my original question, what is the range of these things? And can they be brought into land after doing a reconnaissance mission?

Can they be shot down? Can they shoot back?

At the risk of being a 'Luddite', I'd like to know that these things are more than an expensive piece of defenceless balsa-wood that goes up but can't come down.

When they can get one to go from Brisbane to Alice in around an hour, you'll have me suitably impressed.

Either that, or we buy a couple of thousand of these things and have two or three hanging around in places similar to "arizona, texas, california, florida" just in case.

BJ:)

 

Unless we plan on tackling an insurgency in the northern territory there shouldnt be a need to scatter the UAV's about but most airports capable of supporting turboprop aircraft shouldnt have a problem hosting a detachment of UAV's with a bunch of guys to keep them flying. You dont even need to send out the aircrew as they can fly them from the air conditioned comfort of their RAAF base.

 

*Statistics from wikipedia so dont take them as gospel

 

Regards

Or... Sarg K... we could always let 'them' in into the Interior... sell them pop-corn and fake Boomerangs... ... ... and NUKE the lot of them.

 

Just think.... one plane... one bomb... one Pilot and one Navi... 32 Ground Crew, and about 8 tons of Kero.

 

How cheap is that?

 

Of course, the joint would be fritzed for about the next hundred-thousand years or so, but who really goes there apart from Tourists anyways?

 

BJ:)

 

not sure why you're querying range when everyone is aware that australia was the initial proponent of BAMS and when its pretty well common knowledge that we've handled global hawks at intercontinental ranges, when both GH and Mariner were extensively trialled in the Nth West of Australia, and when we all know that we can deploy a weapons fitted UAV for more than 14 hrs and have participated in exercises where they were up for 17hrs.

the reason why aircraft such as Mariner got everyone excited was due to the fact that we could weaponise it and actually run it further than any manned combat asset we have.....

moving along, the X-47's have the same engine as some of their manned cousins and can achieve similar ranges, carriage etc....  in fact they're starting autonomous events for trial on CVN.s  That seems to me to inidicate significant capability.

as a 5th gen australian who had a childhood in the Territory, I think I'm familiar with distance....