The Orion Air Group upped its profile by displaying a Gulfstream IISP modified as an R&D testbed at the Royal International Air Tattoo, RAF Fairford, UK, in mid-July. The privately held U.S.-based group was founded about three years ago, and generated nearly $200 million in 2010 from special mission and corporate aircraft services. The latter are marketed under the Tempus Jets name.
Orion’s first and biggest defense-support contract is with Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, for which it flies three Bombardier Global Expresses modified to carry Northrop’s battlefield airborne communications node (BACN) system. The aircraft fly from Bagram airbase near Kabul, Afghanistan, to provide a communications gateway over the country to connect disparate voice and datalink networks, both satcom and line-of-sight. The U.S. Air Force recently renewed Northrop’s contract to provide this “Internet Protocol server in the sky.”
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