Draken International and Nellis

Although contracts started as early as November 2015, it now seems that the USAF at Nellis AFB (NV) will no longer need the adversary support from Draken International. The past years, commercial company Draken International, with its headquarters based in Lakeland (FL), has been flying out of Nellis with a fleet of ex-military aircraft.

Mainly flying from Nellis with the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, the Aero L-159 Alca/Honey Badger and Dassault Mirage F-1, Draken's extensive fleet is equipped with fourth-generation technology and is flown by former and current military-trained fighter pilots.

Draken International has built a good reputation on the international Contract-Air market. But, having not gained, or prolonged a contract, staying on Nellis is no longer an option. Draken International is expected to complete its final contract fulfillments at Nellis before the end of the year.

Scramble assesses that the training and exercises at Nellis will become more focused on the "High-End Fight". The latter meaning that more fifth-generation fighters, such as the F-35A, will be involved to simulate to counter near-peer threats. This also applies to adversaries and aggressors.

At Nellis, the "Red Force" threats are aligned under the 57th Operations Group, which controls seven squadrons of USAF Aggressors, including fighter, space, information operations and air defense units. The Aggressors are specially trained to replicate the tactics and techniques of potential adversaries and provide a scalable threat presentation to "Blue Forces" which aids in achieving the desired learning outcomes for each mission.

There is more to it.

With emerging aircraft technologies and capabilities, there is also the US Special Access Program (SAP). SAP means any programme that is established to control access and distribution and to provide protection for particularly sensitive classified information beyond that normally required for Top Secret, Secret or Confidential information. A SAP can be created or continued only as authorised by a senior agency official delegated such authority pursuant to Executive Order 13526. The latter was ordered under the Obama Administration in 2009.

Special access programs (SAPs) in the US Federal Government are security protocols that provide highly classified information with safeguards and access restrictions that exceed those for regular (collateral) classified information.

Those are also applicable for USAF's F-22A Raptor, F-35A Lightning II, B-2A Spirit, B-21 Raider, Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) aircraft and Black projects. Within the US Department of Defense, SAP is better known as "SAR" by the mandatory Special Access Required (SAR) markings. It is quite possible that the above has to do with the non-renewal of the contract for Draken International at Nellis.

At the moment it remains to be seen how certain things will be arranged at Nellis. For the time being, it is expected that several contracts for Draken International will remain in the US and Europe or new ones will follow.

Credit photos: Brandon Thetford and NickJ 1972 (On Flickr)