Upgrade will give C-130J new intel role - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Upgrade will give C-130J new intel role

The Air Force’s efforts to add a camera to its Senior Scout roll-on/roll-off signals intelligence payload for the C-130J Hercules is the culmination of nearly a decade’s work.

The service has aimed to create an array of multi-intelligence platforms that can cover a broad swath of terrain without a dedicated surveillance aircraft.

“This is an idea [former Air Force Chief of Staff Gen.] John Jumper had, to put these on transport [planes] so you could dual-use them” as airlifters or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms, said Daniel Gouré, an analyst with the Lexington Institute of Arlington, Va.

A transport plane could carry out an intelligence mission while partially loaded with supplies, and if there is an empty return leg, that sortie could be dedicated to a surveillance mission, Gouré said.

Such a capability could be invaluable in Afghanistan, where aircraft equipped with payloads like Senior Scout could free up other assets.

The aircraft would be tasked with general “environmental” intelligence, which would enable more dedicated aircraft to be tasked to their own particular mission set more often, Gouré said.

The Air Force plans to begin flight-testing this month of a new version of its Senior Scout payload for the C-130J.

Originally developed in 1991 by the Air Force’s Big Safari office, the venerable Senior Scout package is being upgraded to work with the C-130’s J variant, as well as with older planes, said Tom Boyce, Lockheed Martin’s manager for airborne collection and exploitation systems.

That version will become operational in the spring, but that is only the first step.

Lockheed is working to add an electro-optical/infrared camera to Senior Scout, in a package that would arrive next year, company officials said.

“In 2012, it will also have imagery capability,” Boyce said.

The capability will be “an enhanced version” of those sensors aboard the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency’s Shadow Harvest program or the Marine Corps’ Harvest Hawk, which puts an infrared sensor ball and weapons kit on a KC-130J tanker, Boyce said.

Unlike Harvest Hawk, Senior Scout won’t carry weapons, he said.

Gouré said that adding weapons adds cost and unneeded complexity.

“It restricts what you can do with it,” he said.

Lockheed can develop such intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance packages quickly and at lower cost because it uses the technology in multiple packages, said Charles Gulledge, the company’s head of business development for airborne reconnaissance systems.

Much of the technology is common to the company’s Dragon family of ISR systems, he said. The new Senior Scout variant is slated to become operational in the spring.