Now it appears the Tiger will be retired early and a replacement sought around the mid 2020's. I never could get around the fact that the Tiger was supposed to be a ISR asset and yet it could datalink to no other assets outside of the Army - perhaps until now with NG's relay test bed.
http://australianaviation.com.au/2016/02/troubled-tiger-set-for-early-retirement-new-light-helicopter-for-special-forces-on-the-way/
Most interesting development is this airborne "Gateway" now being offered by NG to allow comm's between assets like the Tigers, Supers and Wedgetail. At the recent Jerico Dawn firepower exercise at Pucka, this technology was demonstrated. Sounds like money well spent to get these assets all talking to one another. Possible "host" for this relay comm's link tech could be the KC-30's or Global Hawk UAVs.
http://australianaviation.com.au/2016/03/airborne-gateway-provides-air-land-integration-for-jericho-dawn-firepower-demonstration/
This may bore the socks off many, but I do find all this fascinating - now systems are linked together to share info to give the users that global "Gods Eye" view of the battlespace. I dabble in industrial instrumentation "networks", so reading about how all this happens with very complex military equipment is of interest to me. Kinda cool that NG are demo'ing this tech in a Gulfstream II as well. Anyone seen this about?
http://australianaviation.com.au/2016/03/communications-relay-testbed-gulfstream-arrives-in-australia/
