RAF Tornado Computing Power Given a Boost

June 25, 2012 defpro.com

A new £16 million contract to provide Tornado GR4 aircraft with new kit

For anyone who is a computer gamer, it’s a familiar story. Advances in software development provide real advantages but inevitably you need the latest hardware if you want to play the games at blistering speeds. Well it’s pretty much the same with today’s combat aircraft – operational flight programmes are becoming more capable as functionality is added but you need some pretty powerful kit to play it on.

A new £16 million contract will provide Tornado GR4 aircraft with that new kit in the form of a new main display processor, (known as a Computer Symbol Generator), as well as a new Operational Flight Programme which will use the expanded processing capability to full advantage. With improved situational awareness and more capable data-links, Tornado will remain a potent aircraft through to its out-of-service date.

To deliver this capability the Combat Air Support team is working closely with a number of other teams including the Defence Information team at Yeovil, the Electronic Systems team at Rochester, our partners Cassidian and our customer teams. Formal delivery of the software and hardware updates will take place in early 2014.