Northrop Grumman Delivers UAV MQ-4C Triton Next September

Northrop Grumman Delivers UAV MQ-4C Triton Next September

Northrop Grumman Delivers UAV MQ-4C Triton Next September. Aircraft maker giant will offer an early MQ-4C Triton UAV operative capability to the US Navy. This September, only grazing above the previously announced delivery date in August.

Northrop started the taxi test this week and expects the first flight of the EOC aircraft to take place at the Northrop facility in Palmdale, California in the coming weeks, Thomas Twomey, Triton's commercial development leader, told FlightGlobal. Although Northrop has built three Triton test vehicles, this fall's flight will mark the first flight of early operational capability, says Twomey.

"I would not consider it a big delay, it's just where we said we would deliver it," he says. "This is development, so there are always challenges."

The Triton baseline, also known as the Integrated Functional Capacity Configuration 3, will be equipped with the Northop Multifunction Sensor (MFAS), a maritime patrol version of the AESA (Electronic Electronic Scanned Array) radar.

Northrop will deliver the two base Triton aircraft, B5 and B6, to NAS Point Mugu, California.

As tensions increase in North Korea and the Pacific region, the US Navy Will debut its new ISR capacity in Guam in 2018, a service plan launched during the Obama administration. Following the deployment of Guam, the next lots of newts will fly in Sigonella, Italy and an unnamed station in the central command region of the United States, says Twomey.

After Triton reaches its early operating capacity in fiscal year 2018, Northrop has its eye on initial operating capacity in 2021. Northrop will add signal intelligence capability to the aircraft, bringing the unmanned aerial vehicle to parity with the Manned fleet of EP-3 reconnaissance.