U.S. Army ends five-decade turboprop surveillance period

The U.S. Army has accomplished the retirement of its legacy aerial intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance turboprop fleet, ending greater than 5 many years of steady service because it pivots towards a jet-based future constructed across the High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System, or HADES.

For greater than 50 years, plane resembling Guardrail, Airborne Reconnaissance Low-Multifunction (ARL-M), and the Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System–Multiple Intelligence (EMARSS-M) offered airborne ISR protection throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Indo-Pacific. That chapter closed this 12 months following a phased divestment course of that started in fiscal 12 months 2023.

In July, ARL-M and Guardrail flew their ultimate operational missions in Korea, ending 54 years of Army A-ISR turboprop operations on the peninsula. In September, the final remaining EMARSS-M plane accomplished its ultimate mission, formally concluding the fleet’s operational historical past.

According to the Army, the choice displays a broader shift in priorities towards near-peer competitors and Multi-Domain Operations. In an announcement, Project Director Sensors–Aerial Intelligence Julie Isaac stated the transfer was pushed by funding and functionality realities.

“In 2022, the Army made a deliberate funding resolution to prioritize aerial modernization to concentrate on deep sensing capabilities, aligning with future Army methods,” Isaac stated.

Guardrail first entered service in 1971, when the Army deployed the plane to the first Military Intelligence Battalion in Germany to watch Soviet Bloc troop actions in East Germany and Czechoslovakia. The system remained in Europe for practically 30 years earlier than getting used extensively throughout Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, the place it helped determine Iraqi Republican Guard formations and supported coalition advances, together with Marine Corps operations towards Kuwait City.

Guardrail plane later flew missions throughout Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, whereas additionally sustaining a long-standing presence in Korea, the place they supported monitoring actions close to the demilitarized zone from the mid-Seventies onward.

ARL-M joined the fleet in 1996, responding to a requirement from U.S. Forces Korea and U.S. Pacific Command to exchange the retiring OV-1D Mohawk. For the primary time, the Army fielded a shifting goal indicator and artificial aperture radar subsystem that allowed surveillance, imagery reconnaissance, goal identification, and communications intercepts from a single platform.

EMARSS was the ultimate turboprop system added to the fleet. Developed on the Beechcraft King Air 350ER, the primary prototype flew in 2013 and have become operational by 2016, with deployments to Africa, Latin America, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The program used a typical structure throughout 5 variants to adapt to totally different mission necessities and evolving know-how.

Modernization efforts prolonged the fleet’s service life. In 2006, the Guardrail Modernization Program upgraded RC-12 plane to the RC-12X Guardrail Common Sensor, changing getting older payloads and increasing sign assortment capability. Army officers say these upgrades prolonged the fleet’s relevance by practically twenty years.

Despite these enhancements, the Army concluded the turboprop platforms couldn’t meet future necessities. The service cited limits in velocity, altitude, vary, energy, and payload capability, all of which constrained deep sensing towards near-peer threats.

“As the Army shifts its focus from the previous 24 years of counterinsurgency operations to align with the Multi-Domain Operations battle, legacy programs just like the ARL-M, EMARSS, and Guardrail Common Sensor needed to be divested,” Isaac stated. “A smaller fleet of plane that may cowl a lot bigger footprints for longer intervals of time is now the way in which ahead.”

To bridge the hole to HADES, the Army has deployed jet-based ISR demonstrators, together with ARTEMIS and ARES, and is pursuing the ATHENA radar and alerts intelligence platform. According to the service, these programs enable analysis of sensors on the altitudes, speeds, and ranges anticipated for HADES.

“ARTEMIS, ARES, and ATHENA will serve to display the worth of latest and present sensor applied sciences in HADES-like packages,” stated Eric Hughes, product supervisor for the Multi-Domain Sensing System.

HADES, constructed on the Bombardier Global 6500 enterprise jet, is now in prototyping. The first plane was delivered final 12 months, a second arrived in July, and the primary totally developed prototype is predicted in fiscal 12 months 2026.