BAE Systems awarded contract to enhance capability of Finnish Air Force

Yeovil, Unit­ed King­dom — BAE Sys­tems has been award­ed a con­tract to pro­vide a Link 16 net­work man­age­ment sys­tem to the Finnish Air Force. Sup­port­ing the oper­a­tion of Finland’s F‑18 air­craft, the sys­tem will enable ground com­mand and con­trol oper­a­tors to con­nect to, and main­tain con­tact with, their fast jets across the entire coun­try.

BAE Sys­tems will work in part­ner­ship with Rock­well Collins, the prime con­trac­tor and team leader for the Ground Sta­tion programme. 

Under the con­tract, BAE Sys­tems will pro­vide all the soft­ware to set up the infra­struc­ture, con­fig­ure and con­trol the var­i­ous remote sites and con­fig­ure and man­age the Link 16 net­work. BAE Sys­tems will also pro­vide a sim­u­la­tion envi­ron­ment which that will pro­vide the Finnish Air Force with the abil­i­ty to par­tic­i­pate in high fideli­ty col­lab­o­ra­tive train­ing exer­cis­es whilst still sup­port­ing live operations. 

Built upon a set of proven sys­tems the net­work man­age­ment sys­tem pro­vides a low risk, inno­v­a­tive solu­tion to meet the com­plex oper­a­tional require­ments of the Finnish Air Force, along with the chal­lenges of the ter­rain and envi­ron­ment in which the sys­tem will operate. 

The Link 16 net­work man­age­ment solu­tion offered by BAE Sys­tems allows the Finnish Air Force to dynam­i­cal­ly mon­i­tor the con­nec­tiv­i­ty between the var­i­ous ground sites and the air­craft, and to con­tin­u­ous­ly mea­sure how the net­work is per­form­ing to main­tain an unin­ter­rupt­ed service. 

Paul Burke BAE Sys­tems Busi­ness Direc­tor said: “We are delight­ed to be part of the team deliv­er­ing this capa­bil­i­ty as we have unpar­al­leled expe­ri­ence in the pro­vi­sion of com­plex data link net­work man­age­ment and sup­port sys­tems. The solu­tion for the Finnish Air Force is based on sys­tems suc­cess­ful­ly deliv­ered by us to the UK MOD that allow mon­i­tor­ing and man­age­ment of the UK’s Link 16 net­work, achiev­ing greater than 99% reli­a­bil­i­ty over the peri­od since their introduction. 

About BAE Sys­tems

BAE Sys­tems is a glob­al defence, secu­ri­ty and aero­space com­pa­ny with approx­i­mate­ly 107,000 employ­ees world­wide. The Com­pa­ny deliv­ers a full range of prod­ucts and ser­vices for air, land and naval forces, as well as advanced elec­tron­ics, secu­ri­ty, infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions and cus­tomer sup­port ser­vices. In 2009 BAE Sys­tems report­ed sales of £22. 4 bil­lion (US$ 36. 2 billion). 

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, please contact: 

Nicky Dono­van, BAE Sys­tems Tel: +44 (0) 1935 443196 Email: nicky. donovan@baesystems.com

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