Australia — Boeing Vigilare Enters Service with RAAF After Successful Multinational Air Combat Exercise

BRISBANE, Queens­land — Vig­i­lare, the Boe­ing [NYSE: BA] Net­work Cen­tric Com­mand and Con­trol Sys­tem (NC3S) devel­oped for the Com­mon­wealth of Aus­tralia, has entered ser­vice with the Roy­al Aus­tralian Air Force (RAAF) after excelling in a major multi­na­tion­al air com­bat exer­cise.

On Sept. 2, the RAAF began using the Vig­i­lare North­ern Region­al Oper­a­tions Cen­tre (NROC) at RAAF Base Tin­dal, North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry, for sur­veil­lance and bat­tle­space man­age­ment oper­a­tions across Australia. 

“With the accep­tance into oper­a­tional ser­vice for NROC, the RAAF and Defence Materiel Organ­i­sa­tion (DMO) have con­clud­ed that the enhanced capa­bil­i­ty pro­vid­ed by Vig­i­lare pro­vides a robust Air Defence Com­mand and Con­trol (C2) sys­tem for Aus­tralia,” said Tim Mal­one, DMO project direc­tor for Project Air 5333 — Vig­i­lare. “NROC is now cor­re­lat­ing a myr­i­ad of data feeds from sen­sors and infor­ma­tion across Defence, civ­il and for­eign sources pro­vid­ing direct­ed air sur­veil­lance and air bat­tle man­age­ment capa­bil­i­ties for the RAAF. In my opin­ion, this capa­bil­i­ty, espe­cial­ly the sophis­ti­cat­ed Tac­ti­cal Data Link imple­men­ta­tion, is arguably world-class.” 

“We’re extreme­ly pleased with the way Vig­i­lare has tran­si­tioned into oper­a­tional ser­vice at NROC,” said Steve Park­er, vice pres­i­dent and gen­er­al man­ag­er of Net­work and Space Sys­tems for Boe­ing Defence Aus­tralia. “It’s indica­tive of the con­sid­er­able engi­neer­ing and project man­age­ment rig­or we’ve applied and the prag­mat­ic rela­tion­ship between Boe­ing, our sup­pli­er part­ners and our Aus­tralian Defence Materiel Organ­i­sa­tion and RAAF cus­tomers. Vig­i­lare has set the bench­mark for future com­plex sys­tems inte­gra­tion with­in the Aus­tralian Defence Force by bring­ing sev­er­al dis­parate sys­tems togeth­er to cre­ate a true sys­tems-of-sys­tems environment.” 

Pri­or to ser­vice entry, Vig­i­lare par­tic­i­pat­ed in “Pitch Black 2010” — one of the RAAF’s largest and most com­plex air com­bat exer­cis­es, which also involved the air forces of Sin­ga­pore, Thai­land and New Zealand. Dur­ing the exer­cise, held July 16-Aug. 6, NROC was used as the cen­tral C2 node, pro­vid­ing con­tin­u­ous sur­veil­lance and bat­tle­space man­age­ment for offen­sive counter-air and offen­sive air-sup­port operations. 

The sys­tem inter­act­ed with mul­ti­ple assets, includ­ing RAAF F/A‑18 Hor­nets, F‑111s, Hawks, for­ward air con­trol PC-9s, and AP-3C Ori­ons; Repub­lic of Sin­ga­pore Air Force (RSAF) and Roy­al Thai Air Force F‑16s; an RSAF E2‑C Hawk­eye Air­borne Warn­ing and Con­trol air­craft, and oth­er air mobil­i­ty and air-to-air refu­el­ing assets. 

“We proved at Pitch Black that Vig­i­lare is able to pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive pic­ture of the skies above in a coali­tion envi­ron­ment,” said Park­er. “This sys­tem is a game chang­er for the RAAF because of its ful­ly inte­grat­ed data link capa­bil­i­ties, mul­ti-lev­el com­mu­ni­ca­tions, mul­ti­source cor­re­la­tor track­ing, and advanced sys­tem man­age­ment capabilities.” 

Vig­i­lare is on track for final sys­tem accep­tance in mid-2011. The next major mile­stone lead­ing up to this is com­ple­tion of the East­ern Region­al Oper­a­tions Cen­tre at RAAF Base Williamtown, New South Wales. 

NC3S works by com­bin­ing infor­ma­tion in near real-time from a wide range of plat­forms, sen­sors, tac­ti­cal data links and intel­li­gence net­works to deliv­er tac­ti­cal and strate­gic sur­veil­lance oper­a­tions and bat­tle­space man­age­ment in the air and joint domains. The live inputs from these sources present a uni­fied oper­a­tional pic­ture to the oper­a­tor at sin­gle or mul­ti­ple con­trol cen­ters. NC3S is cur­rent­ly part of a broad­er offer­ing from Boe­ing to oth­er coun­tries, includ­ing the Unit­ed Arab Emirates. 

Boe­ing Defence Aus­tralia, a whol­ly owned sub­sidiary of The Boe­ing Com­pa­ny and a busi­ness unit of Boe­ing Defense, Space & Secu­ri­ty, is a lead­ing Aus­tralian aero­space enter­prise. With a world-class team of more than 1,500 employ­ees at 14 loca­tions through­out Aus­tralia and two inter­na­tion­al sites, Boe­ing Defence Aus­tralia sup­ports some of the largest and most com­plex defense projects in Australia. 

A unit of The Boe­ing Com­pa­ny, Boe­ing Defense, Space & Secu­ri­ty is one of the world’s largest defense, space and secu­ri­ty busi­ness­es spe­cial­iz­ing in inno­v­a­tive and capa­bil­i­ties-dri­ven cus­tomer solu­tions, and the world’s largest and most ver­sa­tile man­u­fac­tur­er of mil­i­tary air­craft. Head­quar­tered in St. Louis, Boe­ing Defense, Space & Secu­ri­ty is a $34 bil­lion busi­ness with 68,000 employ­ees worldwide. 

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Con­tact:
Jen­ny Waller
Boe­ing Defence Aus­tralia
+1 (61) 7 3306 3148
jenny.l.waller@boeing.com

Source:
Boe­ing Company 

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