Keeping Our Seas, Borders and Coastlines Safe and Secure

It's a well-recognised and acknowledged fact that, due to the necessary but vital government cutbacks, and especially such cuts in our defence budget, Britain's borders are now more vulnerable than ever before.
This is set against a backdrop of increasing risks and threats - both real and forecast. It has also led to greater potential exploitation by a number of criminal and terrorist elements.

In particular, our lack of an effective MPA (Maritime Patrol Aircraft) resource dangerously increases our vulnerability.

Now a real and cost-effective solution exists, that involves no capital outlay by Government, but does provide the necessary protection against (amongst other risks):

Maritime incursions (in an MCT role) SAR Human trafficking Drug trafficking
Illegal weapons movements Attacks against offshore assets - oil and gas platforms, wind farms, for example Pollution

Affectionately referred to as "Nimrod Jr", the Globalert MARS (Maritime Airborne Reconnaissance and Surveillance) programme is designed to enhance and support the efforts of our UK Border Agency, HMRC, Police and Intelligence Authorities, MCA, MMO, DfT, Department of Energy, and Search and Rescue -amongst others - in a sophisticated, effective and extremely secure manner.

In partnership with Hawker Beechcraft UK, who provide the airborne platform (a King Air 350ER), Selex Electronics (formerly Selex Galileo), who supply the Selex Seaspray 7500 radar systems, WesCam, who equip us with the MX15 EO/IOR imaging equipment, CarteNav, HeliMedia and 3SDL who are responsible for our Mission Control, Data and Communications systems, Globalert MARS represents a state-of-the--art and affordable solution to our national defence needs.

It also provides scope for the employment of our highly skilled and trained airborne personnel, formerly from the ill-fated Nimrod/AWACS programme (and predominantly ex RAF Kinloss.