The US Navy’s broad area maritime surveillance demonstrator (BAMS-D) unmanned aircraft successfully completed its first deployment to Central Command.

During its eight-month deployment, the BAMS-D flew over 60 flights providing thousands of images to Commander Task Force 57 (CTF-57) in support maritime intelligence and surveillance activities.

The BAMS unmanned aircraft system consists of two block 10 RQ-4A aircraft equipped with electro-optical infrared cameras, maritime-enabled synthetic aperture radars, automatic identification system receivers and electronic support measures (ESM) payloads.

The operational team flew the BAMS-D unmanned aircraft from Patuxent River Naval Air Station and performed first-pass analysis of intelligence data while providing real time information to CTF-57.

Once the deployment is completed the aircraft will undergo depot-level maintenance and test operations, while a second BAMS-D aircraft is deployed from Pax NAS.

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