General Atomics displayed a full-scale mock-up of its Gambit collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) at World Defense Show in Riyadh, which opened on 8 February. Simultaneously, GA-ASI continues to advance the capabilities of its MQ-9B unmanned aircraft.
Indeed, C. Mark Brinkley, chief global marketing and communications strategist at GA-ASI, explained to Asian Military Review that efforts are now being concentrated on integrating long-range, standoff weapons onto the MQ-9B.
Three missiles in particular are being integrated onto the unmanned platform: Lockheed Martin’s Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM/JASSM-ER), plus Kongsberg’s Joint Strike Missile (JSM).
Taking the Asia-Pacific region, for example, where distances are vast, such a maritime strike capability makes sense. The MQ-9B already has a range of 5,000nm and an endurance of 40+ hours, plus the standoff nature of these weapons provides a potent reach.
To give an example, an MQ-9B flying from Darwin in Australia could fly as far as Taiwan, release a weapon, and then fly back home. This is the kind of reach that is necessary in the Asia-Pacific region, which suffers from the tyranny of distance.
Brinkley predicted that at least one of the above trio of missiles would be test-fired sometime this year. He said that GA-ASI has already been doing internal feasible studies on the carriage of these missiles.
The MQ-9B has accumulated 14 customers already, and adding such a long-range strike capability would broaden the appeal of the MQ-9B even further. Brinkley told AMR that many countries remain interested in the platform, whose worldwide fleet now surpasses 500,000 flight hours annually.
Regionally, Taiwan has an order to the tune of four MQ-9B aircraft, whilst Japan and India are also operating it in the Asian region.
Turning to the Gambit CCA family, this is being developed for the US Air Force. Brinkley touted the tremendous amount of experience in autonomous operations as being critical to the Gambit programme. For example, GA-ASI aircraft already perform half a million take-offs and landings every year.
In January, GA-ASI signed an agreement with Calidus in the UAE encompassing potential co-production of the Gambit. GA-ASI is seeking to ink similar agreements in Saudi Arabia, with this desire evident by the fact that the Gambit mock-up bore the livery of the Royal Saudi Air Force.
by Gordon Arthur
