One of Australia’s most important future maritime surveillance assets will be the massive uncrewed Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton drones, which Australia is acquiring in a collaborative program with the USN. To date three of these High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) jet powered aircraft have been contracted from a potential order of six – with a seventh aircraft a distant possibility. However, the program has had some wobbles and might not be completely out of the woods yet.
In February an Australian Defence official told the Senate: “As I addressed in the last Senate estimates, there is still an ongoing production pause as a result of US Congress budget decisions. In the most recent Congress budget outcomes this year, they agreed to fund the production of two more Triton. But that doesn’t mean the production pause is over.
“Our government has agreed—or approved—the acquisition of three Tritons; that’s three air vehicles. Then there’s the supporting infrastructure and systems that we need to operate the Triton as a capability. We will then continue to review the continuing acquisition of Triton, pending the outcomes and decisions from the US on their production pause.”
This situation developed because of different USN funding priorities, and the Presidential fiscal 2021 budget request included funding pauses for that year and also 2022. The US fiscal year starts on October 1 each year, finishing on September 30 in the following year – so there is only a partial overlap of the Australian financial year.
However, production did not stop mainly because Australia contracted the three Tritons referred to above and then the USN pitched in with a fourth. This narrowly avoided a disaster because even brief delays in funding can be very disruptive to supply lines with the possibility of workers being retrenched and companies going out of business – or at the very least switching their attention to programs that are more reliable.
This is an excerpt from APDR. To read the full story, click here.
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