Raytheon Systems' Sentinel R1 airborne stand-off radar aircraft has moved a step closer to delivering surveillance services to the UK armed forces, with the acceptance into service of the first complete system earlier this month.
The Sentinel fleet will eventually comprise five Bombardier Global Express business jets modified to carry a dual-mode surveillance radar, and will from late 2008 deliver synthetic aperture radar and ground moving target indication imagery in support of British and coalition forces.
"Our main effort is to achieve the earliest practicable operational output," says Wg Cdr Harry Kemsley, newly appointed commanding officer of the Royal Air Force's 5(AC) Sqn at Waddington, Lincolnshire. "My target is to be ready to deploy by the end of next year, although I think that's pessimistic."
However, chief of the air staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy says the RAF will not make a firm decision to deploy the aircraft until the service has "sufficient confidence in the robustness of the system".
The programme's first aircraft - delivered earlier this year in an interim software standard to support training development activities - is now performing between three and five flights a week from Waddington. Subsequent deliveries were delayed when Raytheon "ran into some issues with fitting radomes onto the aircraft late last year", says Justin Monger, the company's ASTOR programme manager.
Raytheon now expects to deliver a second aircraft during the third quarter of this year, with two more to follow around October. The last example should be transferred by year-end, although Monger says this could slip into early 2008 due to parts shortages. System acceptance is scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year, with the availability of two aircraft and two complete ground systems.
Two Sentinel aircraft now based in the USA are close to completing radar testing work, says Monger. Two verification flights are required to complete SAR trials, while two flights to demonstrate GMTI performance against small and slow-moving ground targets will be made by early August.
Raytheon is also under contract to upgrade the aircraft with a new UHF communications suite, updated software and improved connectivity with the US Air Force's Northrop Grumman E-8C JSTARS fleet, he reveals.
Kemsley says 5 Sqn is looking at the ASTOR aircraft's ability to perform "scan and cue" operations in all weather conditions, first using its radar in swath mode to look at a wide area of territory - such as a border - before focusing on individual objects of interest in greater detail.
Source: Flight International