Defence manufacturer Northrop Grumman is preparing to deliver two MQ-4C Triton maritime surveillance uncrewed air vehicles (UAVs) to Australia.
Northrop said on 6 February one of the aircraft is undergoing final calibration testing at NAS Patuxent River in Maryland, while the second jet is being readied for a ferry flight to Patuxent River from a Northrop facility in Palmdale, California.
Following what the company describes as “robust flight testing and validation”, the two high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) aircraft will be delivered to Australia later this year.
One MQ-4C is already in service with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), having been delivered to RAAF Tindal in Australia’s Northern Territory in July 2024. That Triton, number AUS 1, completed the transfer flight under its own power in three segments.
The two Tritons undergoing final testing represent Australia’s second and third examples of a planned four-aircraft order. However, defence strategy documents from Canberra have indicated the RAAF’s MQ-4C fleet could expand to include six or seven aircraft.
Those remotely-piloted UAVs will be operated by Australia’s 09 Squadron, based RAAF Base Edinburgh in South Australia. The aircraft themselves will be stationed at RAAF Tindal – some 1,600 miles (2,570km) to the north on the periphery of potential conflict zones in the South China Sea and Southwest Pacific.
“The MQ-4C Triton will play a pivotal role in securing Australia’s strategic areas of interest, including our maritime approaches,” says RAAF chief Air Marshal Stephen Chappell.
Personnel from 09 Squadron have undergone partner training in Jacksonville, Florida with the US Navy (USN), which also operates a fleet of the long-endurance UAVs. Both services operate the MQ-4C alongside the Boeing P-8 Poseidon conventionally manned maritime patrol aircraft.
A crew of five ground operators control each Triton via secure satellite link. Each team includes an air vehicle operator, tactical coordinator, two mission payload operators and a signals intelligence coordinator. The towable trailer-based ground control station can be moved to forward locations as needed, a procedure the USN tested in 2021.
During that exercise an MQ-4C control centre was loaded into a US Air Force Boeing C-17 transport, which the Pentagon says allows the Triton to support operations “from nearly any US facility in the world”.
While Northrop and the USN do not disclose the range of the Triton, the navy says each jet boasts an flight endurance of more than 24h and cruising speed of 320kt (592km/h).
The MQ-4C is powered by a single Rolls-Royce AE3007H turbofan.
