Airforces

Supporting Shader

The final Royal Air Force Sentinel R1 was withdrawn

from Akrotiri last December. Since then, U-2s of the

99th RS’s 1st Detachment (previously 3rd Detachment)

forward-deployed at the base have provided

intelligence for air strikes during Operation Shader,

the UK’s contribution to the campaign against IS.

The U-2’s history at Akrotiri dates back to the early

1970s when it was decided to covertly operate the

spyplanes from the base in order to monitor the 1973

Arab-Israeli war and Egyptian military activity around

the Suez Canal. This secret deployment was revealed

in December 1977 after a U-2R crashed into the

airfield’s control tower during take-off, resulting in the

death of the pilot and several RAF and local personnel.

Today, the 1st Detachment has three U-2S deployed to

Akrotiri under a programme named Olive Harvest – also

nicknamed ‘Fantasy Island’. These aircraft have two

missions: intelligence-gathering and routine currency

training of U-2 pilots involved in OIR at Al Dhafra.

Satellite images reveal that the detachment has three

hangars including one for field and organisation-level

maintenance of 1st Detachment and 99th ERS jets.

A U-2S equipped with the Intelligence Reconnaissance Imagery System III (IRIS-III), an optical imagery

package that uses a high-resolution panoramic camera with a 24in focal length.

installation. This included the Senior Spear
COMINT installation in the right-hand underwing
‘super pod’, an antenna ‘farm’ on the aircraft’s
belly, and the Senior Ruby ELINT collection
system in the ‘super pod’ under the port wing.
The jet that flew the mission over Afghanistan
played a key role in hunting Mullah Abdul Rauf
Khadim, deputy commander of Islamic State of
Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province (IS-KP,
the branch of the group active in Afghanistan
and Pakistan). He was detected together with
five other militants in a car crossing the desert
of Helmand province late that night. Thanks to
signals gathered by the U-2’s sensors, the car
was destroyed by an AGM-114 Hellfire missile
launched from a USAF MQ-9A of the 451st Air
Expeditionary Group (AEG) based at Kandahar,
Afghanistan. All six in the vehicle were killed.
The second U-2S involved flew over
Iraq, where it assisted USAF air strikes
against IS strongholds in and around the
Above: An airman with the 99th ERS marshals
U-2S pilot Capt Jon during his fi nal fl ight with
the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing at Al Dhafra on
October 12 last year. USAF/TSgt Anthony Nelson Jr
Left: Airmen from the 380th Expeditionary Aircraft
Maintenance Squadron conduct fi nal preparations
on a U-2S before take-off for an Operation
Inherent Resolve sortie in February last year.
USAF/SSgt Matthew B Fredericks

http://www.airforcesmonthly.com #362 MAY 2018 // 69