Airforces Monthly - February 2017

UNITED KINGDOM: ISTAR REVIEW
to pass more stringent airworthiness
standards so it can be certified — hence
the name — to fly in civilian airspace.
It emerged last November that the UK
intended to buy 16 Certified Predator Bs,
with an option for ten more, as well as
12 ground control stations and launchrecovery
control stations. RAF sources
say it is envisaged that this will enable the
service to increase its number of UAV crews
from 30 to 100. The SDSR also committed
to the purchase of two more Shadow R1s
and to upgrade the Sentry fleet to allow
the E-3Ds to remain in service until 2035.
Cash crisis
While the headline announcements in the
2015 SDSR were undoubtedly good news
for the RAF ISTAR Force, there was a sting
in the tail. The extra spending for the P-8s,
Protectors and Shadows, as well as other
new equipment for the RAF, Royal Navy
and British Army, was not funded in full
with new money by the UK Government.
All this additional spending, with the
exception of paying for a full complement
of Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II jets
for the Navy’s two Queen Elizabeth-class
aircraft carriers, is being funded from some
£11bn in efficiency savings and land sales
across the MOD. This is being achieved
by closing bases, outsourcing to private
contractors, retirement of equipment,
disbanding units, reduction in live training
and tight control on personnel numbers.
The RAF ISTAR Force was expected to
make its contribution to these cuts, along
with other parts of the service. To kickstart
the process, and to make the ISTAR
Force more efficient, the RAF launched
Project Athena. This initiative is looking at
new ways of providing training, managing
its infrastructure
and personnel
career planning.
At the heart of the ISTAR
Force’s efficiency drive is
the retirement in 2021 of
the Sentinel without a
direct replacement, as
well as the withdrawal
from use in March
2017 of one of
five E-3s. The
start of the
Above: The UK prides itself on operating a wide fleet affording a multi-spectrum capability. Crown Copyright
£2bn Sentry upgrade was delayed until 2020.
Not surprisingly, the impact of the
imminent drawdown of the Sentinel fleet
was greeted with great concern by the
ISTAR Force’s senior leadership because
of its impact on the availability of aircraft
to support frontline operations in Iraq and
Syria. As a result, the fifth Sentinel was
retained in service for an extra six months
and a study was launched to review how a
replacement for its wide-area surveillance
capability could be brought in after the
type’s retirement. The most likely solution
is the addition of an overland surveillance
capability to the RAF’s new P-8As, similar
to that already provided on US Navy
Lockheed P-3 Orions, but it seems unlikely
this will be ready in time for the Sentinel’s
proposed out-of-service date in 2021.
One of the more interesting efficiency
measures to emerge since the 2015 SDSR
is a proposal to transfer the British Army’s
fixed-wing manned aerial surveillance
Britten-Norman Islander AL1 and Defender
AL2 aircraft to the ISTAR Force.
There seems to be no replacement of the
RAPTOR photographic reconnaissance pod
after the departure of the last Tornado
GR4 in 2019, suggesting that other existing
systems and platforms will have to take up
the slack if no successor can be funded.
Options include a new tactical recce pod for
the Typhoon or the mounting of a DB-110-
class sensor on another aircraft, such as
the Sentinel. The tight financial situation
does not bode well for the RAPTOR’s
replacement being organised ready for the
retirement of the GR4 in two years’ time.
One of the more challenging aspects of
introducing new aircraft and forming new
units is the fact that the service is allowed to
recruit only 300 more people above its 32,000
current strength. Almost all the personnel
to crew the new aircraft and systems will
have to be found by diverting staff from
other duties and extra money from other
projects in order to ramp up the aircrew
training pipeline to transform additional
recruits into operational fliers. Although
more than 20 Nimrod aircrew were sent
on exchange to the US and Australia under
Project Seedcorn to maintain the RAF’s
anti-submarine expertise, the generation
of 400 more personnel for the Poseidon
force is likely to be the biggest challenge.
For the ISTAR Force the future looks
brighter than it did after the 2010 SDSR
when the Nimrod was axed with no
replacement. Finding manpower for
its new platforms, and a cost-effective
replacement for the Sentinel, are now
centre-stage for the RAF’s leadership.
The Sentinel crews are praised for being able to adapt and quickly provide real-time data. Crown Copyright
42 FEBRUARY 2017 #347 www.airforcesmonthly.com