Australia Leads Asia In UAS Acquisition

Understanding which UAS systems to acquire and how to deploy them across all three services was a challenge that the Australian Defence Force accepted at an early stage.

- Tim Fish

The acquisition of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in the Asia-Pacific region varies depending on national budgets and requirements for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) across each service branch.

Countries with large maritime areas and healthy budgets can opt for more expensive Group 3 and 4 Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) and High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) systems while the rest mainly use smaller UAS in Groups 1 or 2 that are short-range tactical UAS.

In the region, Australia has taking a leading role in developing UAS capabilities with the procurement of new platforms for all three services that will dramatically enhance the country’s ISR capabilities over the next decade. The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) intends to start operating its first MQ 4C Triton from 2023 with additional platforms entering service in 2024-25. There are orders for two aircraft under a US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) agreement with the US Air Force (USAF) that will be built by Northrop Grumman, with plans for a total of six or seven to be purchased over time.

Australia has a considerably large land mass and maritime exclusive economic zone (EEZ) to monitor and with a range in excess of 8,000 nautical miles and endurance of 24 hours the Triton UAS seem to fit RAAF requirements. They will operate alongside the new P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft that are being delivered by Boeing.