Jack Daniel's corporate jet transformed into flying intel lab.

• Author: Beidel, Eric
• Position: TECHWIRE

A jet once used by executives at Jack Daniel's may improve military intelligence-gathering operations.

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Lockheed Martin spent $18 million to buy and modify a Gulfstream III business jet, which once belonged to a semi-pro hockey team and the Jack Daniel's company. The plane is now a flying laboratory in which customers can test and update intelligence-gathering technologies.

The Airborne Multi-Intelligence Laboratory (AML) has been making stops domestically and overseas. During a recent visit to the United Kingdom, the plane demonstrated its ability to disseminate real-time intelligence via streaming video, imagery and communication feeds to a ground station.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown the need for sensor systems that can detect, identify and track small groups operating outside a traditional military structure. The AML has been designed with those situations in mind, said John Beck, transformation programs manager at Lockheed Martin.

"We took a private executive jet with a wet bar and made it into an operational [intelligence...