The British Ministry of Defence has announced a new £173 million contract with DRAKEN Europe for the continued provision of a range of training support tasks and effects including UAV simulation, target towing, Electronic Warfare and Aggressors.

DRAKEN Europe, operating from the airport of Teesside and with support jobs in Bournemouth, will deliver training support to the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force using a fleet of 14 Dassault FALCON 20 aircraft equipped with pods for electronic warfare and radar targeting training; a single Diamond DA42 and 8 jets Aero L-159E HONEY BADGER.

The new contract will ensure training exercises receive high end electronic warfare and Aggressor support from now to 31 December 2028. The requirement, known officially as the “Interim Medium Speed Operational Readiness Training Services”, has been in the pipeline for quite some time with the invitation to tender issued in February 2024. The contract should have been concluded in time to become operational on 1 January 2025.

The services provided include Electronic Attack, Threat Simulation, Silent Target, Target Towing, Low Slow Flyer (UAV simulation in support of exercises), Full Motion Video downlink, Mission Augmentation and White Force support, to the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy.

Threat simulation is the main role for the radar-equipped HONEY BADGERs, which have provided this service since the withdrawal of the HAWK T1 from the Aggressor role in 2020/21. The FALCONs, equipped with various pods, provide the electronic attack and target towing. The DA42 is the main  “Low Slow Flyer” which stands in as surrogate REAPER/PROTECTOR or alternative ISR drone, providing ISR for surface forces and video downlink training for JTACs and Fire Support Teams using ROVER terminals.

Assuming the requirements have remained unchanged from the call to tender, the service should deliver 6000 flying hours per annum with an additional margin of 600 hours in case of need. DRAKEN must be able to deliver up to 22 sorties per day, supporting up to 10 different tasks simultaneously.

The armed forces provide a number of different pods to enable the Threat Simulation and EW support missions. The pods include CHIMERA and FLIMSY, payloads at classification level UK Secret, as well as MALVERN pod for radar targeting work; Threat simulation pods Q100 and S400 and others, as well as Range-less Air Instrumented Debriefing System (RAIDS) and Real Time Monitoring System  (RTMS) pods to enable full integration of the Draken aircraft within exercise scenarios and telemetry.

The towed targets include the Low Level Height Keeper (Electro-Optic and Miss Distance Indicator), sleeves and towed targets for training with naval PHALANX CIWS systems and light guns.

The Aero L-159 “HONEY BADGER” is equipped with a multi-mode Doppler Leonardo GRIFO-L radar. Draken acquired these aircraft second hand from the Czech  Republic beginning in 2015.

The Falcon 20s used to be operated in the same exercise support roles by Cobham: Draken acquired them in 2020.

The UK MoD has repeatedly attempted in the past several years to forge a comprehensive, modern, integrated training support solution under a single contract, first with Project ASDOT (Air Support to Defence Operational Training) then with MUSTANG. It remains intended that, towards the end of the decade, a new and modernized air support solution will be delivered, which justifies the “Interim” moniker in the current project name.

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