Aurora Flight Sciences, a provider of advanced aerospace vehicles and robotic aircraft for military and scientific applications, has delivered composite aerospace structures for the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Unmanned Aircraft System (BAMS UAS) program of the U.S. Navy. The first complete ship set was delivered to the global security company, Northrop Grumman.
The U.S. Air Force uses the RQ-4 Global Hawk aircraft for performing reconnaissance, observation and inspection tasks. The U.S. Navy has its own version of the aircraft – the MQ-4C BAMS UAS. It is designed to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) information. The UA will have the capability to cover large areas over coastal and open ocean regions and supply information about surface threats to military personnel.
Aurora Flight Sciences is a part of the Q-4 Enterprise team at Northrop Grumman. Apart from the radomes and the wings, it had provided most of the composite components for the Global Hawk.
For the MQ-4C BAMS UAS aircraft, Aurora is providing the forward nacelle, aft nacelle, mid nacelle, V-tail and aft fuselage assemblies. The company is manufacturing these assemblies at its Bridgeport composites manufacturing facility in West Virginia. These components are then delivered to the Palmdale manufacturing facility of Northrop Grumman for assembly.
Aurora's President and CEO, John Langford, stated that the delivery was a milestone achievement in the BAMS UAS Program.
Source: http://www.aurora.aero/