Army Moves to High-Tech, Fixed-Wing Jet for Surveillance, ISR

Video Above: Air War in 2050-  A Warrior Maven exclusive interview with US Air Force Maj. Gen. & Commander of the Air Force Research Lab, Heather Pringle

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

(Washington D.C.) Foreign adversary air defenses continue to reach breakthrough ranges, target processing speeds, multi-frequency detection and high-fidelity radar tracking, a threat circumstance which continues to drive the US military services to continuously upgrade and refine high-altitude, long-range surveillance.

Surveillance Aircraft

While helicopters and medium-to-low flying drones will always remain critical to maneuvering ground troops in more permissive or less contested environment, where the US operates with air superiority, the Department of Defense has identified a growing need for higher-altitude, longer-range, yet more precise fixed-wing ISR to identify and counter threat air defenses. Therefore, the Army is immersed in a multi-year process to replace its existing Beechcraft King Air RC 12X Guardrail Common Sensor and other surveillance aircraft with a longer range, higher-flying jet-derived Bombardier 6500 ISR platform.

Video Above: Lieutenant General, Thomas Todd – Chief Innovation Officer of Army Futures Command sits down for an exclusive interview with Kris Osborn.

These new, fixed-wing surveillance platforms, upgraded with high-resolution, long-range multi-functional sensors and radar systems, can now detect much smaller threat objects from farther distances with great image fidelity. These advancements are being capitalized upon by the U.S. Army through its Army Theater Level High-Altitude Expeditionary Next Airborne ISR Radar. (ATHENA-R) and the follow on Program of Record (POR) High-Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System (HADES) program. HADES is described by the Army as a multi-intelligence payload that can find targets by eavesdropping on electronic communications signals, then identify them in any weather with a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and ground moving target indicators (MTI).