Security and Resilience: Protecting India’s Air Force on the ground

General Dynamics UK’s experience of working with the Indian Air Force through its support programme for Hawk, combined with its pedigree in infrastructure protection around the world is applied to the security of military and civil airfields where the combination of extensive external perimeters, high-value strategic assets and round the clock operational activity demands a comprehensive response.

General Dynamics UK enjoys a 50-year pedigree in protecting key facilities around the globe; from borders, airports, commercial ports and communications centres to some of the largest oil and gas installations and pipelines that run across some of the most inhospitable terrain in the world. Key facilities currently protected include the Shell Pearl GTL facility in Qatar, the Neste Oil NExBTL plant in Singapore, Khalifa Port in the United Arab Emirates.

In addition, its work in protecting the US and Italian Air Force bases in Europe as well as civil airports such as London’s Heathrow and Vancouver’s International Airport means that General Dynamics UK has a holistic view on how best to protect an air force’s most valuable assets-its equipment, its infrastructure and its people.

So how would General Dynamics UK protect Indian airfields?

In addition to providing an integrated system approach to protecting assets and infrastructure on the ground, General Dynamics UK also protects aircraft from unexpected attack and observe airfield runways for foreign objects such as IEDs. A typical airfield will have an external perimeter defining and protecting the facility within which high security zones such as fuel or armament stores will be established. Flight lines will require protection within and beyond the external perimeter to ensure the safety of aircraft from ground-based attack as they depart or approach the airfield. During the course of day to day operations, many staff, visitors and contractors will require controlled access to the site with the ability to restrict certain areas to authorised personnel only.

So how does General Dynamics UK ensure that these variables are taken into account in a protection system?

An integrated command and control system for security operations is at the core of the General Dynamics UK solution and provides centralised situational awareness and control. The system is designed to use the latest developments in security technology alongside existing sensor and communications networks. Sophisticated threat detection and evaluation tools ensure that the operators are only delivered relevant and verified information allowing rapid decision-making and better coordination of response to the threat.

A perimeter fence encompassing the facility to provide a physical barrier that prevents vehicles and pedestrians from gaining access to the facility may be supplemented with other physical measures such as embankments or ditches, as well as electronic measures. These are deployed in a layered approach and would typically include buried sensors to give early notification of approach; area sensors, such as cameras, to detect when something is in the area and fence mounted sensors to detect physical contact with the fence. Long-range day/night cameras or radar systems can also be used to provide additional extended coverage over large open areas.

Site wide access control systems restrict access to the airfield to personnel and vehicles with the required level of authorisation. Within the facility there are several areas that require an extra level of security at which an enhanced level of access control can be installed. Command and control sub-systems allow operators to interact with the system at an appropriate level to their role and all transactions can be overseen by the operations centre. Physical measures such as turnstiles, vehicle barriers and blast protection are in place to provide a safe and controlled environment in which surveillance, access control and search technologies can be deployed. Within the facility there will be certain areas such as fuel and armaments stores that will require a higher level of security than the external perimeter. Access to these areas will be limited to only essential personnel and additional security measures such as biometric identity checks, camera surveillance and fence detection systems will be deployed.

The flight line area extends beyond the external perimeter of the facility and is at risk of ground-based attack on the aircraft on their approach or departure from the airfield. Systems such as buried sensors ground radar and long-range cameras provide operators in the operations centre with the ability to detect and monitor the activity in and around the area. General Dynamics UK has worked in partnership with QinetiQ to develop the Tarsier Runway surveillance system which detects foreign objects on the runway and apron areas with high resolution video and camera, millimetric scanning radar plus day, night and all-weather (DNAW) capability.