Web Page sponsored by Blighter Surveillance Systems
www.blighter.com
————————————————————————-
10 Nov 17. The Force Multiplier, a turnkey aircraft on-demand contract aircraft, ready to perform flight hours for maritime and ground surveillance missions. At the Dubai Airshow, Thales and PAL Aerospace are unveiling the Force Multiplier, an aircraft with an endurance of more than 10 flight hours which is specifically designed to provide an operational service that meets the immediate needs of both government and private customers in terms of maritime and ground surveillance. The operations will include search and rescue at sea, life raft deployment, immigration control, surveillance of sporting events and forest fires, as well as border surveillance. Users will be able to reserve flight hours as early as 2018, offering them an on-demand operational platform, without acquisition or maintenance support costs. Thales, as system supplier, will provide the SEARCHMASTER® multirole surveillance radar, offering an unbeatable level of performance, and the AMASCOS® multi-mission system, with its extended, scalable surveillance capabilities, as well as the ground station. As a result, it will be possible to prepare mission data and share the tactical situation in real time. In addition, operators will have the opportunity to replay and analyse their missions. All of these features, which constitute input factors for real-time decision-making, will help ensure operators act efficiently and at exactly the right time. PAL will operate the service aircraft. The aircraft will also be available for training of future flight crews, as customers participate in platform acquisition programmes.
09 Nov 10. Thales’s SMART-L radar detected and tracked a Terrier Oriole ballistic missile well outside the earth’s atmosphere. This unique achievement was the highlight in Formidable Shield 2017, an integrated air and missile defence exercise organized by the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet in the Hebrides test range in the Atlantic Ocean.
Admiral Rob Kramer of the Royal Netherlands Navy tweeted: “Technology triumph and top innovation by Thales and the Royal Netherlands Navy. This helps us keep safe in turbulent times.”
On the 15th of October, the ballistic missile was launched from the Hebrides coast. It reached an altitude of 300 km and a velocity of more than 3 km/second. Thales’s SMART-L radar on board of HNLMS De Ruyter detected and tracked the ballistic missile and made the data real-time available to a US Navy’s Aegis-class ship, via the designated NATO communications network. The quality of the data was high enough to be used for a Launch on Remote. The SMART-L radar on HNLMS De Ruyter, was temporarily modified to include the latest technology that Thales has recently developed for Ballistic Missile Defence purposes. This technology is used in the SMART-L Multi Mission radar that Thales is building for the four Royal Netherlands Navy’s Air Defence and Command Frigates and for two land-based versions for the Royal Netherlands Air Force.
Gerben Edelijn, CEO of Thales in the Netherlands: “This exercise proves that Thales has developed a radar system that is capable of timely detecting a ballistic missile and generating reliable data to enable the elimination of the threat. Such a sensor is an essential asset for armed forces in the protection of their countries’ population and high-value objects.”
Parallel to the events in the Atlantic, the SMART-L Multi Mission on the test tower in Hengelo again detected and tracked the ballistic missile
09 Nov 10. Rafael positions for Thai growth. Israeli company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems is positioning a range of products for the Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) as the service looks to expand its air combat capability over the next few years. The company’s Litening targeting pod is already integrated onto the RTAF’s fleet of Saab Gripen aircraft, which were acquir