News Stories
General Dynamics UK Limited To Help Deliver Tactical Information Exchange Capability for MOD
21 January 2008 09:52
Company Profile
General Dynamics UK Limited, a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), has been selected to provide the TIEC capability to the Royal Air Force as BAE Systems’ key technology partner.
General Dynamics UK will provide the Tactical Data Link (TDL) sub-system of the Tactical Information Exchange Capability (TIEC) programme for the Royal Air Force Tornado GR4 and Harrier GR9 aircraft. The upgrade is a key Network Enabled Capability programme for the UK MoD and involves the integration of Link-16 and Improved Data Modem (IDM) on the aircraft. TIEC will integrate the Link-16 and IDM messaging functionality with the aircraft systems to provide the aircrew with enhanced situation awareness that will enable the prosecution of Time Critical and Time Sensitive Targets and will support dynamic re-tasking of the platform and provide a significant enhancement in the area of coalition operations.
TIEC demonstrates General Dynamics UK's growing domain expertise in delivering Network Enabling Capability through harnessing Open Systems Technology, which provides architectures that support low cost of ownership through the easy integration of additional functions sourced from General Dynamics UK, or third party suppliers.
General Dynamics UK, as the sub-system prime, will be responsible for harmonising data from the Link-16 JTIDS terminal and the Single-Card IDM (SCIDM®) (a COTS-based module supporting the latest Variable Message Format [VMF] tactical data and image transfer).
“We are extremely pleased to be able to proceed with delivering the full TIEC capability to the UK Ministry of Defence. This is a crucial element of linking the UK NEC battlespace, and further highlights our key strengths in avionics, and Airborne NEC integration. The TIEC selection builds on our experience on other current NEC programmes which include the supply of an integrated, low-risk, Improved Data Modem (IDM) solution for the Spanish Air Force on the Spanish EF/A18 and the Eurofighter Typhoon” said President and Managing Director Sandy Wilson.
Danny Milligan, Vice President, Mission Systems, General Dynamics UK commented; "The General Dynamics UK team have established a partnership with key industrial partners that will us develop and deliver the optimum system architecture to the UK MoD employing the best in lean practices and principles”.