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TRAILBLAZERS TRAILBLAZERSTRAILBLAZERS
A 5th generation force will rely heavily on connectivity, integration,
agility and resilience in equal measures. Air Force was excited to partner
with Northrop Grumman in 2016 to demonstrate the use of an Airborne
Communications Gateway with the potential to link previously incompatible
Army and Air Force systems.
The Jericho Dawn demonstration was held during a live fire joint exercise at the
Puckapunyal Military Area, where an airborne gateway successfully linked Army’s
WGCDR Jesse Laroche Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters (operating on Eurogrid) and the Advanced WGCDR Michael Duyvene de Wit
Plan Jericho Field Artillery Tactical Data System (operating VMF) with Air Force Link 16 Commanding Officer 4SQN
equipped Command and Control (C2) and Close Air Support aircraft.
This was the first time that digital positional, threat and command and control "THIS HAS AND WILL CONTINUE TO ENSURE THAT
information was passed to and from Eurogrid, Link 16 and AFATDS. The airborne
gateway concept enhances the agility needed to respond to C2 challenges when THE AIR FORCE AND 4SQN REMAIN CURRENT AND
and where they arise, as well as demonstrating resilience by providing a viable
communications alternative to space based assets. RELEVANT WITH EMERGING CLOSE AIR SUPPORT
CONNECTIVITY, INTEGRATION, IMPROVING SITUATIONAL
TECHNIQUES AND DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES."
AGILITY AND RESILIENCE AWARENESS AND COMBAT
CONTROL CAPABILITIES
With the assistance of Plan Jericho’s program Utilising this equipment, 4SQN has been able to expand
to Enhance the Air-Land integration, 4SQN have the situational awareness of both individual Combat
embarked upon a series of low cost rapid technological Controllers and also Combat Control Teams. These
acquisitions, focussed on the improvement of digital capabilities include sharing of friendly and threat data, text
situational awareness and Command and Control (C2) chat, wide bandwidth secure communications and other
capabilities which were previously unavailable to 4SQN niche C2 tools. This Jericho initiative in conjunction with
Combat Control Teams. Over this time, 4SQN have other Jericho Air-Land initiatives has increased situational
acquired a number of hand held situational awareness awareness and interoperability across the FEG’s within the
devices and integration hardware kits, that allow the Air-Land domain. With this new equipment 4SQN have
user to connect sensors, tactical radios, external been able to attend BQ 16, a multinational technology
power sources and android end user devices to form a demonstration, focussing on Digitally-aided Close Air
complete situational awareness suite. Support (DaCAS) tactics, techniques and application,
using both current and emerging digital technologies.
4SQN was able to use the new equipment to successfully
conduct DaCAS utilising both Link 16 and Variable
Message Format (VMF) DaCAS messages. This has
and will continue to ensure that the Air Force and 4SQN
remain current and relevant with emerging close air
support techniques and digital technologies. The 4SQN
technology evaluation undertaken with the support of
Jericho has proven a success and has been used to
establish a concept demonstrator and a proposed Air
Force Minors project. The finalisation of this project will
provide 4SQN CCT’s the technology to ensure integration
between Air Force and other ADF units as the RAAF
continues to evolve into a 5th Generation force.
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