Why Is the Navy Building a Shiny Drone Base in Sunny Malibu?

gizmodo.com 03.01.2013

 

The Point Mugu base is technically just outside of Malibu—barely—but we're going to go with it because Malibu Drone Base has a ring to it like nothing else in the history of drones nor bases. Don't you think of red Corvettes, sunglasses, coconut oil, and Hellfire missiles? It's perfect, right? The Navy is inclined to agree, and just issued an "environmental impact" report for the proposed base, which would demolish and rebuild a large part of the existing military presence at Point Mugu, a popular surfing haunt.

 

All that, and you get to fly drones. But not just any drones—state-of-the-art drones. The Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton is at the fore of robotic surveillance, and the Navy wants their 131-foot wings and spiffy 360-degree sensors cruising around the Pacific Ocean in the name of American supremacy.

 

I talked to the U.S. Fleet Forces Command, which had plenty to say about the upcoming drone playground, which is just one of "several bases throughout the world" the Navy wants. Each will host Tritons, with Point Mugu boasting four, conducting around five missions every single day. That's over 1,800 takeoffs or landings every year, from the Malibu spot alone. The goal is 24/7 surveillance—an American eye over the water at all times, during wartime, during peacetime, and all the time.

With bases like Drone Zone Malibu, the Navy will be able to remotely "fly out over the open ocean, find and track ships, targets of interest. That could be potential adversaries, terrorists, whatever the [Navy] needs [to find]." So: an omnipresent maritime eye could spot potential threats—or anything, really—over the waters, and then beam back electronic signatures and video streams to the mainland, where the next step will be made. The Triton isn't an armed drone, but if it spotted something spooky, it could call in some death from above—whether that be a warplane or just another drone.

The Navy was a little vague on what exactly these bad guys could be, since "adversaries" and "terrorists" covers about anything imaginable on a boat. Indeed, we were told that "There are times when [the Navy will] pay attention to commercial shipping" off the Californian coast, boats that don't bear any indication of belligerence at all.

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