Article Posted on : - Mar 17, 2011

MOSS POINT, MISSISSIPPI (BNS): Northrop Grumman has completed the first of three fuselages for the BAMS UAS System Development and Demonstration (SDD) programme.

The MQ-4C fuselage will undergo final assembly and system checkout at the company's Palmdale, California facility ahead of its first flight next year, a company statement said.

“This milestone follows our successful Critical Design Review held last month and shows we are on track to meet our demonstration objectives," said Steve Enewold, Northrop Grumman vice president and program manager for BAMS.

"The second fuselage is under construction at our Moss Point facility and will eventually be part of our three-ship SDD test program," he said.

The Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Unmanned Aircraft System (BAMS UAS) is a versatile maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance system to support a variety of missions while operating independently or in direct collaboration with fleet assets.

When operational, BAMS will play a key role in providing commanders with a persistent, reliable picture of surface threats, covering vast areas of Open Ocean and littoral regions, significantly augmenting the use of other manned assets to execute surveillance and reconnaissance tasks.