Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- The Air Force as soon as Christmas Day will deliver to Afghanistan the first of 24 new Hawker Beechcraft Corp. planes modified by L-3 Communications Holdings
Inc. to support ground troops with video, still images and
eavesdropping.

The four-man, twin-propeller plane “should arrive on or shortly after Dec. 25th,” about one month ahead of schedule, Lieutenant General David Deptula, who oversees Air Force
intelligence and reconnaissance, said in an e-mail today.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered the service in April 2008 to dramatically increase the number of manned and unmanned aircraft providing intelligence to ground troops. The planes
will help support the 30,000 additional troops President Barack
Obama ordered to Afghanistan. Six of the new spy planes already
are flying missions in Iraq.

The Air Force is setting up stations at its air bases at Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan, and Bagram, near Kabul, the capital, to receive and process data and then send it along to
ground troops.

The planes also can beam images and video directly to ground troops, who will be equipped with L-3 Communications ‘‘Rovers” -- laptop devices that allow soldiers to see the same
images as airborne operators. Almost 5,000 Rovers have been
delivered to the U.S. military by L-3 Communications.

Hand-Held Rovers

The Air Force also will give the Army about 50 of the latest-generation Rovers -- hand-held versions that allow soldiers via satellite link both to receive images and to tell
pilots where to direct the plane’s cameras, Deptula said.

The new planes provide “full-motion video and specialized signals intelligence” and all 24 should be in Afghanistan by September, Deptula said.

The aircraft will augment round-the-clock surveillance now provided by unmanned Predator drones.

The modified planes are equipped with both high-resolution and heat-sensing cameras produced by New York City-based L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc. and with radios from Waltham,
Massachusetts-based Raytheon Co. and Melbourne, Florida-based
Harris Corp.

The planes also are equipped with sensors that can monitor insurgents’ conversations and help pinpoint their location, said Jeffrey Richelson, author of the “U.S. Intelligence
Community,” a detailed compendium now in its fifth edition.

The sensors are provided by the National Security Agency, which manages U.S. eavesdropping satellites.

“It’s a lot of intelligence and dissemination capability in a small package,” Richelson said. The planes, with self- protective equipment, are “also clearly designed for a combat
environment,” he said.

Congress this year approved $950 million to buy as many as 37 aircraft from Wichita, Kansas-based Hawker Beechcraft Corp. The planes can fly as high as 35,000 feet and orbit for as long
as five hours. They are modified at L-3 Communication’s
Greenville, Texas, facility.

Hawker Beechcraft was bought in 2007 by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Onex Corp.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tony Capaccio at acapaccio@bloomberg.net..