16 AIR ASSAULT BRIGADE – BRITISH ARMY COLCHESTER

The British Army’s 16 Air Assault Brigade, based at the Colchester garrison, is the Army’s rapid response airborne formation and is the only brigade in the British Army focused on delivering air assault operations. Formed around the legendary Parachute Regiment Battalions, the Paras are amongst the fittest, toughest, most feared and most respected soldiers in the world.

With the challenge set, the Indigo design team got to work and created a series of heavy duty fabricated structural sub-frames. These frames accommodated 3 separate flooring areas; a 4m x 25m turf lane, a 30m x 3.5m lifting zone with duraTRAIN tiles and integrated platforms, and a 12m x 4m training rig zone with duraTRAIN tiles. The frames were created in sections that locked together, which meant they could also be quickly and easily dis-assembled. In addition, fourteen wheeled and locking equipment trollies were designed to store and control small equipment. RAZE Renegade air bikes and rowers were added as they are easy to move around the training space and don’t require mains power. To create a sense of identity for the training space, the Brigade’s Pegasus emblem was sub-surface printed into the fourteen graphix lifting platform centres, a technique guaranteed to protect the logo from wear.