Boeing Defence Australia, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Boeing Company, has announced that it has completed operational testing of its Vigilare network-centric command-and-control system (NC3S) for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).

RAAF operators conducted the test at the Northern Regional Operations Centre (NROC) located at RAAF Base Tindal, Northern Territory. It demonstrated Vigilare's ability to connect a large number of assets - including F/A-18 Hornets, AP3C Orions, Navy frigates, and sensors and data sources located across the Australian continent - into the system simultaneously, while satisfying operational load demands.

This was the final acceptance test of the Vigilare system at NROC, and verifies the system as ready for battlespace management, training and surveillance mission operations. The RAAF now plans to use Vigilare for a multinational air defense exercise later this month.

"This milestone is the culmination of six years of hard work by the Commonwealth, Boeing and our supplier networks, and we continue to be on target to deliver Vigilare's full network-centric-warfare capability to the RAAF by mid-2011," said Arthur Mamalis, Boeing Defence Australia program director for Project Vigilare.

Boeing Defence Australia expects to receive Conditional Acceptance of the system from the Commonwealth later this month. The company will begin installation and testing at the Eastern Regional Operations Centre (EROC) at RAAF Base Williamtown, New South Wales, in late September.

Developed by Boeing Defence Australia, NC3S integrates advanced technologies that combine data from land, sea, air and space platforms, sensors, data links and intelligence agencies to provide tactical- and strategic-level surveillance and battlespace management operations across wide geographic regions.