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Greenville, Texas

BIG SAFARI facility · Blue Devil II GFE available for other programmes

Q4 FY2012 destination of stopped Blue Devil II airship equipment, including government-furnished components. FY2014 USAF budget language: components available for other projects. Later inventory, including March 2014, is not published.

Where did Blue Devil residual components go?

Block 2 equipment, including government-furnished components, was packed and transferred to a BIG SAFARI-managed facility in Greenville, Texas, available for other projects. Residual parts were absorbed into other Air Force programmes. Later inventory — including March 2014 — is not published.

Where was the Blue Devil I government-owned sensor package in January–March 2014?

Aircraft gone; sensors remaining as government property, being assessed for reassignment. Destination on 8 March is open — including Orion, MQ-9, MC-12, or another host. Not shown, and not ruled out.

A BIG SAFARI collection architecture around MH370

The family is documented. A specific 8 March operation is open.

Gorgon Stare, Blue Devil and MAGIC/Orion are one overlapping ISR family under 645 AESG / BIG SAFARI: same office, overlapping WAMI/SIGINT sensors, reusable GFE through Greenville, and a podded architecture meant to move between airframes. That family is confirmed. Whether any of it collected MH370 is not established and is not ruled out.

Blue Devil I / II

Operational Block 1 WAAS + SIGINT · Block 2 residuals to BIG SAFARI

Block 1 was operational: manned aircraft carrying Angel Fire-derived wide-area imagery integrated with SIGINT. Block 2, the airship, was terminated — but its equipment, including GFE, was packed and sent to a BIG SAFARI facility in Greenville, Texas, available for other programmes. The technology did not vanish with the airship.

Gorgon Stare, Blue Devil and MAGIC/Orion are one overlapping ISR family under BIG SAFARI

Confirmed by Congressional and USAF budget records. Same office, overlapping sensors (WAMI, SIGINT, airborne processing), shared GFE path through Greenville, and a podded architecture meant to move between airframes. Not isolated programmes that happen to share a decade.

MAGIC was designed for multi-INT payload modularity, not only endurance

OSD PB2012 lists EO/IR, SIGINT, GMTI, wide-area surveillance, communications relay and strike as modular payload classes, plus reduced-manning / open-architecture avionics. That is the documented architecture. It is not an installed-GFE list for March 2014.

645 AESG / BIG SAFARI

USAF rapid acquisition — the office that binds this family

645 AESG / BIG SAFARI ran specialised rapid-development ISR. It executed MAGIC, developed Gorgon Stare, and took Blue Devil equipment into a facility it managed at Greenville, Texas. That is the documented organisational centre of this technology family, not a coincidence of names.

A specific MH370 collection event is not yet on the record — and is not ruled out

MAGIC/Orion, Gorgon Stare and Blue Devil form a documented overlapping family under BIG SAFARI. That family is not, by itself, a platform, sensor or sortie on 8 March 2014. The same material does not rule such a deployment out.

Blue Devil I operational demonstration ends

31 December 2013 · four King Airs returning to Leidos

Attributed via Inside the Air Force, 22 Jan 2014, quoting USAF officials. The four leased King Airs were returning to Leidos, so the original Afghanistan fleet was not an operational candidate on 8 March 2014. The multi-INT sensor package remained US Government property and was being assessed for reassignment (MC-12 and MQ-9 mentioned, not selected). The sensors did not disappear with the lease.

Blue Devil II stopped; hardware to Greenville

Payload stop 4 Jan 2012 · pack-out May 2012 · storage Q4 FY2012

Airship programme killed. Equipment packed and transferred to a BIG SAFARI-managed facility in Greenville, Texas. Components were available for other projects. Residual parts were later absorbed into other Air Force programmes.

L-3 Greenville awarded Blue Devil 2 integration / test

FA8620-06-G-4003 / order 1157 · $12.054m · 17 Aug 2011

L-3 Communications Integrated Systems, Greenville, Texas, paid for BD2 airship integration and test support. Later Q4 FY2012 storage was also at a 645 AESG-managed Greenville facility. Geographic coincidence is not a custody finding.

MAGIC

Medium Altitude Global ISR and Communications

USAF endurance-ISR programme. Air vehicle: Aurora Orion. Office: 645 AESG / BIG SAFARI — the same rapid-acquisition group that ran Gorgon Stare and took Blue Devil residuals. Confirmed as a multi-day ISR platform in that family. A specific MH370 operation is not established and is not ruled out.

Orion flight 18 — 80-hour record with 1,000 lb ballast

December 2014 · not an ISR-payload demonstration

Aurora’s endurance attempt was flight 18 and carried 1,000 lb of ballast. Maiden flight (no mission system) and this record flight both fail as evidence of an operational ISR stack. Payload on flights 2–17 remains open.

What is the bridge from the ISR family to MH370?

Gorgon Stare, Blue Devil and MAGIC/Orion are a documented family under BIG SAFARI. The open question is one specific platform, sensor, command link, contract, deployment or test event in both that family and the MH370 window. Until that object is found, involvement is not established — and is not ruled out.

What sensors were actually on Orion by March 2014?

Orion was selected as MAGIC’s multi-day, multi-sensor ISR aircraft. First flight had no mission system; flight 18 (Dec 2014) carried ballast. Those two points do not empty the aircraft. Sorties 2–17, including March 2014, are the hole. Gorgon Stare / MTS-B / VADER remain live leads, not closed fits.

What was on Orion flights 2–17 between August 2013 and March 2014?

First flight: no mission system. Flight 18 (Dec 2014): ballast. The MH370-relevant interval is the unlisted sorties in between, plus whether the ‘second flight series’ PB2015 said was being scheduled had begun by 8 March.