Flight International — 22 August — 4 September 2017

DEFENCE

ightglobal.com 22 August-4 September 2017 | Flight International | 19

Meteor plans to

make a bigger

Impact

Defence P

N

orthrop Grumman will de-

liver an early operational ca-

pability (EOC) example of the

MQ-4C Triton unmanned air ve-

hicle to the US Navy during Sep-

tember: just after a previously an-

nounced August target date.

The manufacturer began taxi

testing the Global Hawk deriva-

tive at its Palmdale facility in

California in mid-August, and ex-

pects first flight of the EOC air-

craft will occur in the coming

weeks, Thomas Twomey, Triton

business development lead, tells

FlightGlobal. The company has

built three Triton test vehicles.

“I wouldn’t consider it that

much of a delay: it’s right on

where we said we would deliver

it,” he says. “This is development,

so there’s always challenges.”

The baseline Triton, also

known as the integrated function

capability 3 configuration, will be

equipped with Northrop’s multi-

function active sensor; a maritime

patrol version of an active elec-

tronically scanned array radar.

Northrop will deliver two

baseline aircraft – B5 and B6 – to

NAS Point Mugu, California.

As tensions rise in the Asia-

Pacific region over North Korea’s

ballistic missile development ac-

tivities, the USN will premiere its

newest intelligence, surveillance

and reconnaissance capability in

Guam in 2018 – a plan the service

laid in place under US President

Barack Obama’s administration.

Following the Guam deploy-

ment, the next batches of Tritons

will operate from NAS Sigonella,

Sicily, and an undisclosed base

in the US Central Command re-

gion, Twomey says. ■

T

he US Marine Corps is stand-

ing down each of its aviation

units for a 24h period weekly

over a fortnight-long period, as

the service copes with a recent

spike in mishaps, including two

fatal accidents.

“This operational reset will be

taken at the discretion of com-

manders, based on their units’

operational commitments, to

focus on the fundamentals of safe

flight operations, standardisation,

and combat readiness,” the

USMC says.

Gen Robert Neller, the USMC’s

Commandant, says that opera-

tional commitments across the

fleet will not be affected as each

unit observes the temporary

stand down.

The USMC is facing a spiral-

ling mishap rate, according to in-

formation released by the Navy

Safety Center. Its so-called Class

A accident rate has risen to 4.

per 100,000 flight hours since the

beginning of fiscal year 2017, ver-

sus 3.42 during the same period a

year earlier.

On 10 July, the service experi-

enced its deadliest aviation acci-

dent in more than a decade, when

a Lockheed Martin KC-130T op-

erated by the Marine Forces Re-

serve crashed in Mississippi, kill-

ing 16 personnel. Its remaining

12 examples of the tanker/trans-

port remain grounded.

This was swiftly followed by

the loss of a Bell Boeing MV-

off the coast of eastern Australia

on 5 August, which left three Ma-

rines dead.

A safety report issued four

days after the accident states that

the tiltrotor – which had taken off

from the amphibious assault ship

USS Bonhomme Richard carry-

ing 26 personnel – hit the US Na-

vy’s amphibious transport dock

USS Green Bay during its final

approach in the Shoalwater Bay

Training Area off Queensland.

The cause of the crash remains

under investigation, but the

USMC has lifted a temporary

grounding order imposed on

other MV-22s assigned to its 31st

Marine Expeditionary Unit. ■

An MV-22 was lost while operating from the USS Bonhomme Richard

Commonwealth of Australia

Initial deployment of the Global Hawk derivative will be to Guam

Northrop Grumman

A

n additional Lockheed Mar-

tin F-22 will join the US Air

Force’s operational test fleet by

the end of this year, with the jet

having been taken out of storage

at Edwards AFB, California.

The USAF selected F-22 serial

number 91-4006, an engineering,

manufacturing and development-

model example produced with a

Block 10 avionics configuration.

Modifications expected to cost

$25 million, to upgrade the

parked Raptor to a Block 20 avi-

onics standard, have already

started, the service confirms,

with the platform’s hydraulic,

electrical and flight-control sys-

tems also to be updated.

Flight Fleets Analyzer shows

the stored asset as being 16 years

old. Plans to add the extra test air-

craft were included in justifica-

tion documents for the USAF’s

fiscal year 2018 budget request. ■

UPGRADE

Raptor brought

back to life with

$25m overhaul

UNMANNED SYSTEMS LEIGH GIANGRECO WASHINGTON DC

Triton stays on course for early test

ACCIDENTS LEIGH GIANGRECO WASHINGTON DC

USMC puts air safety in the spotlight

Rising incidence of mishaps, including two fatal crashes, prompts 24h stand downs to sharpen focus on procedures