A new $180 million spy craft is gearing up to be sent to Australia.
The Triton is effectively a giant drone able to detect submarines from high in the sky at a time of increased tensions in the Indo-Pacific.
It has been developed in the Californian desert under lock and key for years.
Marked with a familiar badge, nicknamed Skippy, the Triton unmanned aircraft is one of the most sophisticated ever made.
The spy craft has been under construction for the Royal Australian Air Force inside Northrop Grumann’s facility at Palmdale in the California desert.
It has a high-tech radar able to detect anything metal in water, carries an onboard camera and can fly for more than 24 hours at a height of 50,000 feet (about 15 kilometres).
That’s higher than commercial airlines.
Sign up here to receive our daily newsletters and breaking news alerts, sent straight to your inbox.
Deputy program manager Brad Champion said the craft’s objective is real-time intelligence gathering.
“Governments and military can use (it) to make to decisive actions and have an understanding of what is going on,” he said.
Read Related Also: Fans Can’t Get Enough Of THESE Vanessa Hudgens’ MET Gala Posts
“There’s a real need for awareness of what is going on in areas like the South Pacific.”
Once down under it will be controlled from RAAF Edinburgh in South Australia.
It will be flown out of RAAF Tindall in the Northern Territory and in a single mission will able to cover 8 million square kilometres around Australia and its territorial islands.
The Triton can provide intelligence, run reconnaissance missions and monitor what’s taking place on and below the ocean’s surface.
The US Navy has used the Triton since 2008 and it has long attracted interest from other nations.
In Australia it will also work alongside the P8 Poseidon to monitor fishing fleets and illegal immigration.
Australia’s first Triton will be delivered in the middle of next year and already the Air Force is wanting more.
Which countries have nuclear weapons, and how many do they have?
This week a full-scale model will go on display at the Avalon Airshow in Victoria before the first official test flight in California.
