DEFENCE
ightglobal.com 10-16 November 2015 | Flight International | 21
SABRE cutting
path to live testing
NEW FOCUS P 22W
ith the release of the UK’s
Strategic Defence and Se-
curity Review (SDSR) anticipated
as soon as 23 November, the
question of whether to hold a
competition to reinstate its
lapsed maritime patrol aircraft
capability continues to drive de-
bate among industry and the
Ministry of Defence.
“I do not see a need for a com-
petition, simply because of the
urgency of need for this capabili-
ty,” a defence consultant told a
Bird & Bird briefing on SDSR
conducted under Chatham
House rules on 2 November. “We
need a proven capability, and we
can’t afford to take any risk.”
Boeing’s 737-derived P-8 is at
the top of the Royal Air Force’s
wishlist, but its high cost has
T
he US Air Force will survey
the market for airframe manu-
facturers capable of delivering up
to 10 “green aircraft” from 2018.
A capability request for infor-
mation notice says the platform
must have the size, weight, power
and cooling characteristics to ac-
commodate 5,900kg (13,000lb) of
mission equipment, including
two 272kg “transmitter/receiver”
payloads on each side, plus self-
protection systems. It also should
accommodate two aircrew and
five mission specialists working at
consoles in the main cabin.
“The prospective aircraft must
be capable of maintaining Mach
0.75 and an altitude of 41,000ft
USAF survey to research ‘green aircraft’ capability
REQUEST JAMES DREW WASHINGTON DC
SURVEILLANCE BETH STEVENSON LONDON
Maritime patrol priorities questioned
Analysts debate importance of competition to select new platform for UK, compared with urgency of restoring capability
Crown CopyrightUS Naval Air Systems Commandbrought the likelihood of an ac-
quisition into question. “If we buy
P-8 we’re buying an aircraft that is
proven, and not having to pay for
the development costs of that ca-
pability,” the consultant argues of
the US Navy-operated type.Another speaker called for “a
proper competition, but an
extremely quick one”, and ar-
gues that should Boeing win, its
offering would have to include
an “innovative solution about
ownership and costings”, andintegrate UK-developed sensors
and electronics.
Sources at the same event sug-
gest that the SDSR will include
the advancement “very soon” of a
successor for the British Army’s
Westland/Boeing Apache AH1 at-
tack helicopters, a decision to ex-
tend the use of the RAF’s
Raytheon Sentinel R1 surveil-
lance aircraft until either 2021 or
2025 and the allocation of funds
to upgrade the service’s Boeing
E-3D Sentry fleet of airborne
warning and control system air-
craft to extend operations to 2035.
A previous proposal to retire
the air force’s 53-strong fleet of
Tranche 1 production-standard
Eurofighter Typhoons in 2019
also is expected to be reversed,
they suggest. ■with an on-station loiter time of
3.5h minimum,” the notice says.
A “notional” timeline requires
airframes to be delivered for inte-
gration at a rate of one per year
starting in fiscal year 2018, with
initial operational capability de-
sired by FY2020.The contracting office at
Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio
says the notice is for market re-
search, and could influence “sev-
eral programmes, or none at all”.
Bombardier says it will re-
spond to the survey. “We will as-
sess the best platform to propose,building on our experience with
programmes like [the UK Royal
Air Force’s Sentinel R1] Airborne
Stand-Off Radar, [USAF] Battle-
field Airborne Communications
Node and Joint Surveillance Tar-
get Attack Radar System (Recap)”
candidate.
Embraer and Gulfstream could
also put forward offers, from the
ERJ-145 to the G550 or G650.
The USAF operates several out-
dated aircraft that it wants to
replace with smaller platforms
that are cheaper to operate. Those
include the Boeing E-3 Sentry and
RC-135 Rivet Joint, Lockheed
Martin EC-130H and Northrop
Grumman E-8C JSTARS. ■Bombardier will point to its experience with the Sentinel platformBoeing’s 737-derived P-8 is the Royal Air Force’s preferred optionDownload the 2015
World Air Forces Report
http://www.flightglobal.com/waf
IN ASSOCIATION WITHRuag 2015 strip ad.indd 1 07/01/2015 14:22