Stewart Penney/LONDON
Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Squire took up the post of UK chief of the air staff in April just as the Royal Air Force was absorbing lessons from last year's Operation Allied Force against Yugoslavia and adapting to a new structure driven by the 1998 Strategic Defence Review (SDR).
He also heads up the service at a time when the RAF prepares for a major re-equipment programme, a significant part of which is the introduction of the Eurofighter into service.
Other challenges he must oversee are the continuing shift towards expeditionary warfare, especially SDR's launch of a series of joint service organisations and commands. These will combine British Army, Royal Navy and RAF assets and personnel, including the RN/RAF Joint Force Harrier (JFH) and the Joint Helicopter Command (JHC) linking all three services' battlefield rotorcraft.
In the case of Eurofighter's introduction into service, while the German and Italian air forces are considering the use of Eurofighter as a swing-role platform, the RAF regards the fighter as multirole. Swing-role means the aircraft will fly a mission equipped for both air-to-air and air-to-ground operations. As a multirole aircraft, the RAF will despatch Eurofighter as either an air-to-air or air-to-ground platform.
The German and Italian air forces are also reviewing the balance between single- and two-seat Eurofighters, believing that an additional crewmember will ease the workload in the swing-role. Neither of the two air forces is considering the Eurofighter's offensive capability until after it is well established in service as an air defence machine. The RAF will be the first service to use Eurofighter's offensive capabilities when they become available in 2005, three years after initial service entry.
Squire says the RAF is acquiring its first truly multirole aircraft since the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom relinquished its ground attack role in the late 1970s: "Eurofighter is a multirole aircraft and we will use it as such."
The RAF, he adds, will have six Eurofighter squadrons and an operational conversion unit. The precise mix of defensive, offensive and multirole units has to be decided but, "there is no doubt we will have multirole squadrons."
He says the RAF is sure that "the technology exists to do things with single-seaters that could not be done before. "The future cockpit will be immensely busy with a great deal of data and a lot of [sensor] fusion, but there will still be the decision-making process, although the aircraft will be easier to fly."
For Squire, the emphasis will shift from cockpit management to decision making, and "we are persuaded we can do it with single crew". But, he adds, "I suspect there could be occasions" with large numbers of aircraft in a collection of packages, particularly for defensive counter-air or offensive operations, when command and control could sensibly be delegated to a crewman in a two-seater.
With the tools available to a Eurofighter package, including extensive datalinking, it would be advantageous for a rear-seat crewmember to look after the package while the front-seater is responsible for the aircraft and its role within the mission, suggests Squire.
Contractorised training
Aircrew training will be a key issue, however. Last month the UK Defence Procurement Agency (DPA) briefed industry on the potential contractorisation of RAF flying training not already performed by the private sector. The Military Flight Training System (MFTS) will cover basic, advanced and multi-engined pilot and navigator training. Rotary-wing and ab initio training are already contractorised.
Squire says that he regards all training, but flying training in particular, as core RAF capabilities. "Unless training is performed properly, then the finest equipment will be poor."
He says the RAF's reputation for quality training is "second to none", adding, "I wish it to remain so." However, he acknowledges that some elderly platforms are "not ideally aligned with aircraft coming into service."
New types, including the BAE Systems Harrier GR7, Eurofighter, Lockheed Martin Hercules C4/5, and BAE Systems Nimrod MRA4, are equipped with glass cockpits while the RAF's training fleet have traditional instruments. Elderly equipment is also expensive to maintain and operate. Squire says the RAF "wants to find a way of bringing newly trained pilots into service in the most cost- effective way without degrading the quality of flying training."
The UK's Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) is another tie-up with the public sector. The programme is potentially worth £9 billion ($13.5 billion) over 30-years to a contractor which will provide the aircraft as part of a so-called public finance initiative (or PFI deal). The winning bidder will use "sponsored reserves" to operate the aircraft in the commercial market, but they will wear uniform for military operations. Contractors expect around 25% of the crews to be sponsored reserves.
Squire says that uniformed manpower must be dictated by the RAF's tasking, adding, "I am a great believer in the total force concept of regulars, reservists, civilians and contractors, but it must be in the right balance." Last year around 5% of RAF personnel deployed overseas on operations were reservists. The RAF also uses full-time reservists in instructional posts.
He adds that FSTA is a military role, "of which there is no doubt whatsoever" - a reality underlined by the award last year of a gallantry medal to a Lockheed TriStar tanker captain.
Squire says that most FSTA crews will be regulars, and he considers 25% reservists as a "reasonable place to start". But, he adds, "whatever the number is, the people would have to be fully trained and conversant with the job." Joint operations are nothing new, Squire says, adding, "we've done joint operations since we started operating." There has, however, "undoubtedly" been a change from the Cold War when everything was pre-planned whereas now there is the opportunity to "think more about the way in which we employ force."
Joint forces are a key element of expeditionary warfare and as in all recent operations - be it in conflict in Yugoslavia, peace support in Sierra Leone or humanitarian relief in Mozambique - more than one service will always be involved.
Squire perhaps has unique experience of joint operations having commanded 1 Sqn during the 1982 Falklands conflict, flying Harrier GR3s from the RN's aircraft carriers. JFH and JHC came out of the 1998 SDR, says Squire. Both are intended to improve operational efficiency. For instance, the UK was often short of helicopters, and the three services have worked together in Northern Ireland and Bosnia, making JHC's formation a relatively easy step.
Post Kosovo
Squire praises his crews' work during last year's operations over Kosovo, but he acknowledges that there were "undeniably some shortcomings." The Harrier GR7s were unable to drop laser guided bombs (LGBs) because the weather conditions prevented the laser guidance system maintaining lock on the targets. There was also a lack of secure communications and suitable anti-tank weapons.
Squire says, "We have been testing [the RaytheonAGM-65G] Maverick since the conflict and trials have been going well. I expect missiles to be in service by the end of this year."
Squire continues, "We are trialling a number of secure communications equipment across a number of [aircraft] types. Systems will be procured as appropriate." He expects service entry by the end of next year.
Likewise he expects all-weather precision guided munitions to be available for the Panavia Tornado GR1/4 by the end of next year. The capability will be an "interim" solution ahead of conclusion of the SR1248 competition - a definitive weapon is not expected to enter service until 2006. Squire says, "I think the interim will be a modification of an existing weapon."
For the future, says Squire, the RAF has "a very good future equipment programme," which he is "confident" can be successfully brought into service.
Source: Flight International
