AirForces Monthly – July 2018

he Royal Air Force’s

Intelligence, Surveillance,

Target Acquisition and

Reconnaissance (ISTAR) fleet

is based at RAF Waddington,

Lincolnshire, but spends most of

the time deployed overseas, where

its ‘eyes and ears’ are focused

on supporting the UK’s national

and international commitments.

Air Cdre Dean Andrew, who

leads the RAF ISTAR Force, told

AFM: “Ninety per cent of [the

ISTAR Force] is based at RAF

Waddington, but we have sub-

elements at Creech Air Force

Base near Las Vegas; RAF

Digby [Lincolnshire], where the

exploitation and dissemination

is taken care of, and also small

elements in the Pathfinder building

at RAF Wyton [Cambridgeshire].”

The air commodore is

responsible for a fleet of around

30 aircraft. These comprise ten

MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted air

systems (RPAS) operated by Nos

13 and 39 Squadrons; seven (to

be increased to eight) Beech 300

Shadow R1/2s; three RC-135W

Rivet Joints; five Sentry AEW1s

and five Sentinel R1s. Meanwhile,

the process of transferring Army

Air Corps Islanders is ongoing.

Air Cdre Andrew continued:

“The RAF ISTAR Force

provides the platforms and

the majority of the processing

that exploits and disseminates

all the airborne-collected

data. It is a pan-spectrum

force, collating intelligence

visually and from signals.”

The various aircraft all have

overlapping capabilities, and while

Air Cdre Andrew couldn’t go into

great detail because of the nature

of the aircraft’s role, he explained

how they all work together: “The

Rivet Joint does SIGINT [signals

intelligence], Sentinel does radar

imagery overland while Shadow

does close-in direct support to

ground forces. Reaper is doing

T

Eyes

RAF

The RAF’s spyplane community, officially known as the ISTAR Force, plays a critical part in daily operations.

Alan Warnes outlines its capabilities and talks to Air Commodore Dean Andrew about its future.

and

ears

of the

34 // JULY 2018 #364 http://www.airforcesmonthly.com

Intel

Report