Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md. -- The Navy's largest investment in unmanned aircraft, the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Unmanned Aircraft System, received its official mission design series designator of "MQ-4C" Sept. 7.

The process for assigning MDS designators and popular names for aerospace vehicles is delineated in a joint Department of Defense instruction managed by the U.S. Air Force.

While based on the Air Force's RQ-4B platform, the BAMS UAS has been designated the MQ-4C due to its multi-mission capability. The "MQ" designates the BAMS UAS as a multi-mission (M) unmanned aircraft (Q) and the "4C" links the BAMS UAS heritage to the RQ-4B.

"The Navy is leveraging the Air Force investment in the Global Hawk baseline and adding enhancements to the system to meet the Navy's persistent maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance requirement," said Capt. Bob Dishman, BAMS Program Manager. "The system will deliver to the warfighter an unprecedented capability to maintain persistent ISR virtually anywhere in the world -24 hours per day / seven days per week."

First flight of the MQ-4C is scheduled for 2012, with initial operating capability planned for fiscal year 2016. BAMS will play a key role in providing commanders with a persistent, reliable picture of surface threats, covering vast areas of open ocean and littoral regions, minimizing the need to utilize other manned assets to execute surveillance and reconnaissance tasks.

When fully operational, the system will operate with 20 unmanned aircraft at five operating locations. The fleet ultimately will grow to 68 UAS to augment P-8 Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft in the Navy's Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Force Family of Systems.

The BAMS UAS program is managed by NAVAIR's Persistent Maritime Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program Office (PMA-262) which is responsible for the development, production, fielding and sustainment of all persistent maritime unmanned aircraft systems.