Combat aircraft

A

T A RECENT o cial media

brie ng in London, a senior

Royal Air Force o cer said,

‘I don’t think — relative

to the size of the Air Force

— we’ve ever operated at

the tempo and scale that we have over

the last three-and-a-bit years’. As the

RAF approached its centenary on April

1, it had two of its eight front-line fast

jet squadrons deployed on Operation

‘Shader’, tackling so-called Islamic

State in Syria and Iraq. In addition, the

stretched Typhoon force was manning

northern and southern quick reaction

alert (QRA) in the UK and the Falkland

Islands, not to mention NATO air

policing duties around Europe, and a

full program of exercises. Supporting

the Operation ‘Inherent Resolve’ e ort

in the Middle East were the Sentinel R1

and RC-135W Rivet Joint intelligence,

surveillance, targeting and airborne

reconnaissance (ISTAR) aircraft, Voyager

tankers, Atlas C1, C-130J and C-17

transports, plus a brace of continuously

deployed Reaper remotely piloted air

system (RPAS) squadrons.

Remarkably, only the Chinook heavy-

lift helicopter force — buoyed by

endorsement and an enlarged  eet size

on the back of the now drawn-down

Afghanistan mission — appears to have

anything like the capacity a modern and

committed RAF demands.

Having dramatically, and constantly,

been slimmed down in the years since

Operation ‘Granby’, today’s RAF would

have to rely on working as part of a

broad coalition to mount anything like

the operation that tackled Saddam

Hussein’s forces in 1991. Back then, the

RAF included 28 fast jet squadrons.

While the Strategic Defence and

Security Review (SDSR) of 2010 hit the

RAF especially hard — killing o the

entire Harrier and Nimrod  eets — it was

done in the name of mending the ‘black

hole’ in the Ministry of Defence  nances.

Back on track?

The 2015 SDSR appeared to see UK

defense turning a corner, ending

decades of decline and kick-starting

a number of signi cant initiatives for

the RAF. At long last it recognized a

need for growth to cope with the range

of missions around the world and an

operational tempo that showed no

signs of slowing. However, hidden away

was the fact that this growth had to be

funded by making savings elsewhere.

One of the headlines of SDSR 2015

was the re-establishment of a maritime

patrol aircraft (MPA) capability. Since the

retirement of the Nimrod MR2  eet in

2010, the UK had been forced to rely on

support from NATO partners to cover

important aspects of this role.

As the Royal

Air Force

turns 100, the

Combat Aircraft

team evaluates

the ability of

the United

Kingdom’s air

arm to face

current and

future threats.

30 April 2018 //^ http://www.combataircraft.net

30-35 RAF 100 C.indd 30 16/02/2018 10:14