Airspaces in Europe Suddenly Seem Vulnerable

Airspaces in Europe Suddenly Seem Vulnerable

This post is also available in: heעברית (Hebrew)

By ARIE EGOZI

The growing Russian presence in Syria, which includes very advanced fighter aircrafts, is a reminder to some European countries that they have to look up after neglecting to look down, a fact that allows huge numbers of refugees to get into their territories.

This urge to look up first happened following the Russian involvement in Ukraine but now this concern is shared by more European countries.

In that new reality there is a growing interest in some of the region’s countries in tools to control what goes on in their airspace.

Some of these countries have currently very limited tools to do so and are urgently seeking solutions.

One very good indication is the great interest in the dual use family of radars developed by Elta, Israel aerospace industries’ (IAI) subsidiary.

This family is an integration of capabilities -air defense, surveillance, threat alert and air traffic control radar. According to the Israeli company it offers an affordable, mission specific solution.

The new advanced radars provide 3D accurate data on detected targets, initiating automatic tracking. A Secondary Surveillance Radar (identify friend/ foe- IFF) can be integrated to perform synchronized detection, interrogation, decoding and tracking.

A company source said recently that countries are looking at the changing situation, and understand that they need more sensors to be ready for new threats.

In Israel the main radars covering the country’s airspace and beyond are operated by the air force with civil controllers present.

These highly advanced Israeli radar systems may fit the requirements of some of the countries that understand now that the sensors they operate now are not enough to get the needed data about an evolving situation.

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