After over a year of work by Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group at Cambridge Airport, the first Global Express 6000 for the United Arab Emirates Air Force, serial number 1325 (c/n 9494), left Robin Hood Airport, the former RAF Finningley in Yorkshire, on its delivery light on August 31. The aircraft has been extensively modiied by Marshalls with unidentiied mission systems under a programme reportedly known as Project Dolphin. In outward appearance the aircraft resembles a Sentinel R1 ISTAR (intelligence surveillance target acquisition and reconnaissance) jet as lown by the Royal Air Force; it is believed to have been designed to fulil a similar role. The aircraft’s exterior is festooned with antennas of various shapes and sizes and there is a large ‘canoe’ fairing under the forward fuselage, a smaller protuberance at the rear between two ventral strakes for stabilisation purposes and another fairing on top of the cabin, presumably for satellite communications systems. The second aircraft, 1326 (c/n 9517) remains at Cambridge although both it and 1325 have been noted at MoD Boscombe Down in Wiltshire.
