Draken Looks to Widen Their Horizons

The Royal Air Force has outsourced airborne Electronic Warfare (EW) training since the demise of the Canberra T17s of No 360 Squadron in 1994, at which point the task was assumed by Flight Refuelling Ltd, later FR Aviation (FRA).  FRA, its Dassault DA-20 aircraft and its operations at Teesside and Bournemouth International Airports were acquired by US-based Draken International Inc from Cobham in 2020, and rebranded Draken Europe.  MS&T’s Dim Jones served on 100 Squadron for 6 years, took part in an FRA DA-20 training mission in 2013, and visited Draken International at Lakeland Linder International Airport , Florida, in 2017.

Six years on, and the landscape has changed.  Limited fast-jet adversary air capability was furnished for the RAF and RN by Hawk T1s of No 100 Squadron and 736 Naval Air Squadron respectively, until their disbandment in 2022.  This capability is now provided by Draken, using a fleet of Aero Vodochody L159E Honey Badger aircraft, under the Interim Red Air Aggressor Training Service (IRAATS).  Together with the re-designated FA-20s, this gives Draken Teesside a distinctly ‘operational’ feel, as witnessed during Exercise Cobra Warrior, and increasingly resembles the sort of service Draken provides in the US, where A-4M Skyhawks, Mirage F1s and the remaining 8 L-159s provide support to the USAF, USN and USMC through Red Flag and other exercises, and use forward operating bases States-wide to do so. Draken also operates two Bombardier Challenger 604s which supplement FA20s in support of a contract in the Middle East.

The Draken Teesside operation gives a real sense of purpose to the airport, which could – following the withdrawal of some scheduled airline services – have drifted towards decline. That it has not is due in no small part to the influence of the Regional Mayor, Ben Houchen, whose efforts have persuaded several other aviation companies, including FedEx and Willis Aviation, to invest in its future. Associated construction is evident, not least in a state-of-the-art new hangar for Draken engineering operations, which is due to open next year and which the company hopes will also become a centre of excellence for Electronic Warfare Officer (EWO) training.

Draken’s aspirations do not stop there.  The company has recently acquired its first three LearJet 60XRs, which will progressively augment and eventually take over the EW role from the FA-20. There is also a specially-equipped Diamond DA-42, which provides procedural training for Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTAC); fast-jet support for JTAC training, previously provided by Hawks of 100 Squadron, is a specialist and dedicated activity, which is not yet in Draken’s portfolio – but watch this space; the current use of front-line aircraft for this task is expensive and, where it is not also training the front-line pilot, an inefficient use of resources.

Operational training is now focused on multi-domain operations encompassing, inter alia, surface threats and uncrewed systems, and Draken have ambitions to be a part of this through: Phantom Sky, which controls and manages Red Force Assets; Sting, surface threat replication; Sword – adversary air; Shield – electronic attack, threat simulation and comms jamming; and Shadow, uncrewed threat replication.

Cobra Warrior 26-2 saw the first deployment of the Sting capability. Deployed at two RAF locations in support of the exercise, Sting provided highly realistic simulated Integrated Air Defence System (IADS) threats to challenge participating aircrews from the UK and allied nations. The capability was integrated with the Phantom Sky range control and situational awareness platform, which coordinated training activity and enabled real-time monitoring, adjudication and control of threat systems across the exercise battlespace.

Want to dive into more on Red Air? Read Dim Jones’s latest piece, Zodiac 5: Inside Draken’s Red Air at Cobra Warrior, here.