Combat aircraft

example, supporting French operations

by providing air transport to assist

counter-terrorism operations in Africa,

while Operation ‘Ruman’ heralded the

operational debut of the Atlas C1 as it

joined the UK’s humanitarian airlift e ort

to the Caribbean in the aftermath of

Hurricane ‘Irma’ last September. The UK’s

Caribbean assistance mission saw a pair

of Atlas C1s acting as a lifeline to deliver

essential aid to islands that had been hit

by one of the worst storms in history.

Securing the future

While the RAF is making progress with its

range of ‘kit’, the standard of its people is

equally important to the service’s leaders.

RAF personnel numbers may be at an

all-time low, of around 35,000, but the

‘whole force’ concept is one that senior

leaders have been keen to promote.

The increased use of reservists and

embedded civilian contractors/industry

support backs up the overall e ort in a

way that couldn’t have been envisaged

20 years ago.

The RAF is keen to form new

partnerships with industry and to look

to sources of innovation beyond the

defense sector. Its new rapid capability

o ce, whose motto is ‘explore, expedite

and exploit’, has a goal of creating a

competitive edge for the front line as

quickly as possible. Hillier describes,

‘a novel partnership with Leonardo

on the BriteCloud expendable active

decoy program, in which both partners

are making substantial investment to

maximize the mutual bene ts’. The RAF

chief said the new system was designed

to meet the challenges of an increasingly

hostile electronic warfare environment.

A £40-million contract to further

upgrade the Typhoon defensive aids sub-

system (DASS), which already includes

missile warning, on-board electronic

countermeasures and decoys, will provide

‘even stronger protection’ against evolving

air-to-air and surface-to-air threats.

The BriteCloud project is described

as, ‘an arrangement based on mutually

aligned incentives, where both sides put

in equal funding and gain an equitable

share of the pro ts, so the RAF can then

invest again in new capability.’

The rapid capability o ce is also

said to be working closely with the

Defence Equipment and Support

(DE&S) organization — which deals with

procurement and logistics — to calculate

and understand the shelf-life of weapons,

potentially saving money, while ensuring

that personnel have access to the most

up-to-date capabilities.

type’s ability to provide an exceptional

‘level of understanding’ across the entire

area of operations. He did, however, note

that the Reaper has a limited weapons-

carry capacity, and that when operating

for up to eight hours at a time it would be

‘good to have multiple weapons on them’.

The recent emphasis on urban con ict

and low-collateral damage weapons in

areas such as Mosul and Raqqa, when

civilians were at the mercy of IS  ghters,

is leading to calls for cheaper precision

weapons. Weapons such as Brimstone

that were procured to ‘take out’ moving

targets are now being used to hit sniper

teams in buildings. It’s a target set the RAF

is seeing every day, according to Stringer.

‘Personally, I’d like to see something

between a Brimstone and a Paveway IV’,

he said. ‘There are many targets that  t

into that low-end collateral range.’

Avoiding collateral damage is at the

forefront of RAF minds. ‘Every man and

woman [engaged in] ‘Inherent Resolve’

and Operation ‘Shader’ wants to be able

to go home at the end of the day and look

themselves in the mirror and know that

what they’ve done is right. It has a value

and importance attached to it, so they can

go back into the  ght the next day’. He

added, ‘[Our] guiding principle number

one is the avoidance of civilian casualties,

but it’s been exceptionally challenging’.

Indeed, he foresees an increase in urban

warfare in the future, re ecting the global

trend towards urbanization.

Stringer continued, ‘We’ve put

everything into this  ght’, this enabling

the UK to o er what he called a ‘broad and

balanced’ set of capabilities.

While ‘Shader’ is a useful showcase

for the range of RAF capabilities, the air

arm’s operational footprint is so much

larger than that. RAF personnel are, for

Above: The

UK’s fi rst F-35B

unit, No 617

Squadron, returns

to the UK this

summer as the

Lightning force

is established

at RAF Marham.

Jamie Hunter

Below: The Airbus

Voyager tanker/

transport fl eet

is run through a

private fi nance

initiative with

AirTanker.

Crown Copyright

http://www.combataircraft.net // April 2018 33

30-35 RAF 100 C.indd 33 16/02/2018 10:14