Tag Archives: MQ-9B SeaGuardian

Persistent UAV Maritime Snoopers Getting to be a Real Thing

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One of the sleeper stories from RIMPAC is that General Atomic’s MQ-9B SeaGuardian spent some 100 hours poking around the exercises and demonstrated Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) targeting and a new Sonobuoy Dispensing System (SDS) to support its ASW capability.

SeaGuardian, which is basically a navalized MQ-9 Reaper (Predator B) with a longer wingspan (79 feet vs. 66), endurance (“40+ hours” vs 24), and heavier weight (12,000 pounds max T/O vs 10,500), has been under development by GA-ASI since 2017.

It is a bruiser, with SeaGuardian featuring nine hardpoints (8 wing, 1 centerline) with a maximum 4,750-pound external payload capacity. By comparison, the Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber had a max payload of 2,250 pounds. Reaper is already cleared to carry Hellfire missiles, Paveways, and JDAMs.

The SeaGuardian variants can carry a 360-degree patrol radar and two 10-tube sonobuoy pods, while still being able to clock in with Hellfires and 500-pound bombs if needed. If you told me they could find a way to mount an anti-ship missile and some Mk. 50 torps, perhaps on a paired aircraft operating in teams, I wouldn’t doubt it.

It has been demonstrating a sonobuoy delivery– and monitoring– capability, having dropped BT, DIFAR, and DICASS buoys in a 2021 test and then successfully tracked a target for three hours.

In its ASW tracking role, it can carry as many as 40 NATO A-size (4 7/8-inch diameter, 36-inch length) sonobuoys. Worse case, they can be buoy trucks for P-8s and MH-60s, especially if they can deploy on an LHA/LHD.

“For RIMPAC, the MQ-9B effectively passed ISR&T information to various surface and air units, such as the Nimitz-class carrier USS Carl Vinson, Guided Missile Destroyers (DDGs), Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), frigates, patrol boats, P-8s, P-3s, and numerous other U.S. and foreign units that took part in the exercise,” said GA-ASI President David R. Alexander.

Impressively, once the exercise was over, SeaGuardian self-deployed back to GA-ASI’s Desert Horizon Flight Operations Facility in El Mirage, California, a trip of no less than 2,893 miles. It has a published (ferry?) range of some 5,000+ nmi, so that is well within its envelope.

For reference, Guam (or better yet, Tinian Island) to Taiwan is just 1,700 miles.

Something not spoken about is that the A-size sonobuoy opens up the use of compatible autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) such as Lockheed’s EMATT and SUBMATT which can mimic submarines and do other neat tricks.

Want to screen an SSN or SSGN operating in a tough non-permissive environment from enemy sub-busters? Imagine the confusion and diversion you can pull off with a few SeaGuardians filed with 20-30 SUBMATTs clearing the way to a vital target, especially if they could be made as glide aways.

Anyway, a few squadrons of weapons-certified SeaGuardians (Quicksink, anyone?) could be very interesting in future Pacific (or Persian Gulf) hot spots, especially in out-of-the-box asymmetric scenarios.

SeaGuardian

Have you seen what they are doing with Reapers lately?

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No, not the guys in black shrouds that go around picking up souls, I’m talking about the very real drone series from General Atomics. Introduced in 2007 as a sort of super-sized version of the Predator, variations of the series have clocked six million flight hours and completed 430,495 total missions as of late 2019 while flying 11 percent of total Air Force flying hours, at only 2.6 percent of the USAF’s total flying hour cost– and maintaining a 90 percent availability rate.

The Air Force has quietly pulled off a couple of key mission enhancements in the past couple of months when it comes to Reaper.

In September, a Creech AFB-operated MQ-9 successfully went air-to-air, using an AIM-9X Block 2 Sidewinder missile against a target BQM-167 drone that was simulating an incoming cruise missile.

An MQ-9 Reaper, assigned to the 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron, armed with an AIM-9X missile sits on the flight line, Sept. 3, 2020, at Creech Air Force Base, Nev. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Haley Stevens)

This month, they doubled the number of Hellfires that could be mission-carried by a Reaper, growing from four to eight.

A 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron MQ-9A Reaper carrying eight Hellfire missiles sits on the ramp at Creech Air Force Base, Nev., Sept. 10, 2020. This was the first flight test of the MQ-9 carrying this munition load. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Haley Stevens)

This new capability is part of the MQ-9 Operational Flight Program 2409, a software upgrade set to field by the end of calendar year 2020. Previous to this software, the MQ-9 was limited to four AGM-114s across two stations. The new software allows flexibility to load the Hellfire on stations that previously were reserved for 500-pound class bombs or fuel tanks.

“The hardware/launcher is the same that we use on the outboard stations,” said Master Sgt. Melvin French, test system configuration manager. “Aside from the extra hardware required to be on hand, no other changes are required to support this new capability and added lethality. The Reaper retains its flexibility to fly 500-pound bombs on any of these stations, instead of the AGM‑114s, when mission requirements dictate.”

Reaper, with about 200 airframes in USAF service, also has a maritime variant that readers of this page should find very interesting– the MQ-9B SeaGuardian which can be utilized for mine countermeasures, ASW, SAR, and general sea patrol with a 25 hour all-weather loiter time that is cheaper and less crew-intensive than a manned aircraft and could really free up a limited number of P-8s, P-3s, and HC-130Js for more dynamic taskings.

SeaGuardian

The SeaGuardian variants can carry a 360-degree patrol radar and two 10-tube sonobuoy pods, while still being able to clock in with Hellfires and 500-pound bombs if needed. If you told me they could find a way to mount an anti-ship missile and some Mk. 50 torps, perhaps on a paired aircraft operating in teams, I wouldn’t doubt it.

SeaGuardian is not science fiction. Last month the platform concluded a set of maritime test flights over the sea-lanes off the coast of Southern California and last week kicked off a series of validation flights on Oct. 15 for the Japan Coast Guard (JCG) in Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, Japan.