Pardubice, February 7th, 2013 An international group of 50 students from the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom in Shrivenham visited the ERA Company headquarters in Pardubice. The main goal of the visit was to have a basic introduction to this key player in the field of passive radiolocation in the world. The students of the Advanced Command and Staff Course learned about the important role of passive surveillance systems as a part of today’s country air defence and had a guided factory tour and a practical demonstration of the VERA-NG passive radiolocation technology.

The excursion was organised at the request of the British Embassy as part of EU state cooperation among governments, military bodies and defence and security industry producers. As the leader of the group, Wing Commander Simon John Ling from the Royal Air Force, observed in connection with the visit, “We have 280 students in our course, which serves for providing master's degree level education for military specialists, who will become ministry of defence officials and commanders of military units. Some of our students travel to Paris, Ankara, Berlin or Oslo but our group was most interested in visiting the Czech Republic and we like the country very much. We have also chosen to come to Pardubice, not only is it an industrial city similar to our hometown Shrivenham, but mainly because the highly specialized production of the companies ERA and Explosia is of interest for us.”

As part of the official program, ERA experts delivered a lecture on the history of alternative radiolocation primarily focusing on ERA's unique military system VERA-NG. This multistatic radar provides a cost effective alternative to conventional radars for the monitoring of military targets including aircrafts or ships. It fully fulfills the purpose of passive monitoring systems, which means “sees without being seen”. “I spent my whole life in the navy as a helicopter pilot and I am keen on those passive Electronic Support Measures Tracking technologies such as VERA-NG by ERA, so I really enjoyed this visit,” stated one of the participants of the excursion, Commander Nicholas Charles Cooke-Priest from the Royal Navy.

On VERA-NG
Passive surveillance is a critical element of today's military and security operations. The passive technology utilized by ERA allows for a virtually undetectable operation, as no signals are sent from its systems VERA-NG even works efficiently in complicated terrain profiles for instance in mountainous areas and guarantees higher update rates.

On the Defence Academy and its programme ACSC
The Defence Academy is the UK's Defence higher educational establishment. It is responsible for post-graduate education and the majority of command, staff, leadership, defence management, languages, acquisition and technology training for members of the UK Armed Forces and Ministry of Defence Civilian Servants. The aim of the Advanced Command and Staff Course is to prepare selected officers for high-grade joint and single Service appointments. The students visiting Pardubice were from Columbia, Japan, Malaysia, Germany, India, Finland or Pakistan.