Australia today announced that the Government has decided not to proceed on to the next partnership phase of the United States Navy in the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) program. Under Project AIR 7000 Phase 1B, Defence aims to acquire an uninhabited aerial surveillance system based on the Global Hawk aircraft built by Northrop Grumman.

The delivery schedule for the United States Navy’s BAMS program has slipped and resulted in the earliest possible in-service date for the BAMS aircraft moving out to 2015.

Australians say that they will continue to closely monitor the progression of BAMS and other similar unmanned aircraft programs. These broader intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities will be fully covered in the White Paper.