C4ISR Journal, echoed by Stephen Trimble at The DEW Line, picks up on Boeing's decision to team with Gulfstream for the Navy's Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) competition, offering an optionally piloted version of the G550 business jet.

Brilliant strategy or spoiler gambit?  Tough call. BAMS is intended to keep a high-altitude radar and electro-optical watch on large areas of ocean while Boeing's own P-8A Poseidon does the tough jobs -- watching the littorals and choke-points, hunting submarines and launching weapons. The requirement was written around a high altitude, long endurance UAV, the other contenders being Global Hawk and Mariner, a variant of General Atomics' Reaper.

Pro:  Boeing is already the integrator on P-8A. The G550, as a commercial platform, should be reliable and reasonably inexpensive to maintain. A piloted option hedges against any restrictions on flying unmanned aircraft near oceanic air routes. And like most modern commercial jets, it comes with a highly automated flight control system, tested to commercial standards.  Israel has already integrated tons of electronic equipment aboard the G550.

Cons:  the G550 is probably not going to provide all the endurance-at-range that the Navy wants, and will not match the range of its commercial brethren once it is festooned with electronic warts. Although it is a commercial platform, it's also much bigger and more complex than the UAV rivals.

It's a very similar maneuver to Northrop Grumman's decision to base its Fire Scout vertical take-off UAV on the Schweizer 330 helicopter. That's worked insofar as the Fire Scout has proven reliable -- but customers continue to gaze longingly at pure UAV solutions that offer better performance.