In a previous life, this Gulfstream jet ferried top liquor-company executives to corporate meetings in boozy style. Now it’s retrofitted to hunt insurgents. The wet bar, alas, is no longer included.
In late 2008, Lockheed Martin paid $18 million to equip a Gulfstream III with an array of sensors and cameras, making it able to shoot video of suspicious activities below and beam it rapidly to a ground station for analysis and early-warning. Since Lockheed’s Airborne Multi-Intelligence Laboratory — as the plane is now known — completed its first flight in 2009, a number of other commercial aircraft have received similar intel-heavy upgrades. Beechcraft passenger planes are now full-motion-video-capturing machines flying above Afghanistan. Like the Lockheed plane, the revamped Beechcrafts have four computer terminals for intelligence experts to capture sound and imagery on board.
But few can beat the Airborne Multi-Intelligence Laboratory’s history as a party jet. Jack Daniel’s execs used to fly in it, and before they did, a “semi-pro hockey team” used it to get around. “We took a private executive jet with a wet bar and made it into an operational [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] platform,” Lockheed strategic programs manager Charles Gulledge told National Defense magazine during the plane’s recent stop in the United Kingdom. “Now we know what it takes.”
Lockheed’s still looking for an American buyer for the plane. (The Finns are paying $100 million to turn one of their Air Force’s EADS planes into a similar flying intelligence station.) Whether the U.S. military will opt to purchase it is uncertain. As the Washington Times reported last week, some senior commanders have recently complained that they’re capturing more footage of insurgents than analysts can possibly interpret.. Maybe it’s time to reinstall the wetbar.
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