The Red Arrows are embarking on a global marketing initiative, courtesy of UK industry PLC
Douglas Barrie/LONDON
The last couple of years are unlikely to be singled out as particularly auspicious in the Royal Air Force's distinguished history - senior resignations tinged with scandal, married with swingeing cuts in hardware and personnel, have left their mark on morale, and on the service's standing in the public eye.
As if this were not enough, the Red Arrows display team - one of the service's sacred cows - appears to be under threat, with the team rendered homeless by the closure of RAF Scampton. There was even a rumour that the aircraft were to be "mothballed".
This is firmly dismissed by Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon, the Chief of the Air Staff. Graydon says that the future home of the RAF's pre-eminent display team has been under consideration at ministerial level. The result is that the new base will be at Cranwell, although the Scampton area will still be used for training.
Graydon is acutely aware of the importance of the Red Arrows, not just in display terms but also in the greater scheme of things. The slightest suggestion of the demise of the Red Arrows, he says "...fills me with horror".
Given that the Red Arrows are temporarily itinerant, it is perhaps fortuitous timing that the RAF has agreed with the Defence Export Sales Organisation (DESO) to send them on a global tour.
What is more, the tour costs, over and above the ordinary running costs, are to be met by UK industry. Several large companies are dipping into their pockets for the honour of sponsoring the Arrows, although a definitive list has yet to be released. Graydon declines to estimate just how much industry will be paying, although he adds wryly that they will get "very good value for their money".
Graydon is understandably keen to see the RAF's display team out and about flying the flag. On a basic level, it makes for good publicity; not just in the countries to be visited, but also back home. "The Red Arrows, that is the aircrew and the groundcrew, are good ambassadors for UK Limited," he says.
Keeping the Red Arrows in the public view also makes the team a far more difficult target for any wayward politician or Treasury bureaucrat with an eye for defence savings. It also raises the general profile of the RAF.
There is a consensus that the RAF has come out worst in the rounds of defence cuts that have been imposed on the UK's armed forces in the 1990s. The more senior services - the navy and army - were deemed to have politically outmanoeuvred the RAF in protecting their respective corners.
Rallying the public to their banners, as the army did in the argument over regiments, played its part in the political debate. The Red Arrows tour is an indication that this lesson has not gone unnoticed in the senior echelons of the junior service.
The tie-up with industry, Graydon readily admits, is a "...step-up in industry's efforts to market its products abroad".
The tour will therefore take in countries such as South Africa, possibly India, and Malaysia, along with states on the routes there and back. Not surprisingly, the British Aerospace Hawk - the Red Arrows display aircraft - is in the running to meet advanced jet- trainer-aircraft requirements in several of the countries to be visited.
Graydon has no difficulty in supporting specific UK industrial products in what he recognises is an increasingly competitive aerospace export market. "I happen to think the Hawk is the best, and I will say so," he declares, adding that "...in the Hawk we've got a first-class product. We endorse the product."
The tour will effectively begin for the Red Arrows in early October when the team will travel to South Africa - with a few possible stops en route, including Greece, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey - to take part in the 75th anniversary celebrations of the South African Air Force.
Following the South African trip, the Red Arrows are likely to return to the UK for a short stay before heading off to Malaysia, for a defence show in December. Early 1996 could see the team visiting Indonesia and Brunei, and perhaps appearing at the Singapore air show in February. The Red Arrows will then return to their as-yet-to-be-made-public new home.
Graydon believes that, if the tour is a success and he can see no reason why it should not be, the RAF may undertake further ventures in collaboration with industry in the future. "If this is successful, then we'll do it again, maybe once every few years," he says.
Such a relationship between the RAF and industry, mediated by the DESO, could also be extended to support other aircraft being offered for the export market.
Source: Flight International