Flight International

I thought I'd seen it all but I clearly haven't. I was taking an interest in Paul Gladman's Image of the Day Blog when I spotted a very unusual aircraft type - the Caspian Sea Monster.

The Saab/Gripen team are hosting a video about what it's like to fly a Gripen fighter jet.

The Christmas tree on display at the Tate Britain, Pimlico, London, stands at 30ft. What's interesting about this tree is not the tinsel and glistening baubles but the 123 handmade kit models of all the world's fighter aircraft currently in service.

There are many mysteries in this world. For example is there a God? Is there extra-terrestrial life? When you drop your toast why does it always land the butter side down? These questions have many conflicting truths, as does remarkably the resignation yesterday of Lord Drayson as Minister for Defence.

His reasons, which I like to refer to the 'Hollywood answer', has been suitably been given the Trimble treatment on his Dew Line blog. Suffice to say that the ability to be the next big motor sport champion was much more tempting than defending the country.

Men in motion get lost because men on the move won't ask for directions, or so the saying goes.

With Rockwell Collins' new ParaNew GPS however, males, at least those hanging on a parachute, will be able to find their way without ever asking.

The avionics maker says the new system, which consists of a miniature flight management system and GPS receiver integrated into a helmet with a small Head-Up display, will help with situational awareness and allow the parachuter to find the right landing zone. Failing that, he'll be able to plop down at a proper alternate.

Raytheon Systems’ well-documented woes during the development phase of the UK’s airborne stand-off radar programme – which have included the inadvertent destruction of the five-aircraft fleet’s first dual-mode surveillance radar and difficulties in installing radomes on recent examples – appear to have reached a new low point.

As this image of the UK’s first in-service aircraft at the Royal International Air Tattoo illustrates, the prime contractor and the Royal Air Force have found a potentially bargain basement way of protecting the engines on the modified Bombardier Global Express business jet while it is on the ground. But I guess as the saying goes, if the cap fits…

Mark Wagner - Aviation Images©

Someone once said that behind every great man is a great woman and as a morale booster for RAF fighter pilots (assuming they are men) these women come painted on the noses of warplanes wearing killer heels and, increasingly, not much else.

The Daily Mail reported on Wednesday (6th June) how the "risque images" of these cartoon women with their "deadly charm", that have decorated warplanes since the First World War are to be scrubbed out.

A comforting story for the poor guys at Airbus in Hamburg who found the A380 wiring coming up a metre or so short. Things could be much worse - as the Indian Navy has reportedly just been told by the folks refitting the Russian aircraft carrier Gorshokov for sale to them.

Seems the engineers underestimated the quantity of wiring required by about, oh, 70% or so. Result - a two year delay and 10% cost hike. India, unsurprisingly, is "sending a senior officer to Moscow to assess the situation".

JD O'Malley (right) is teaching an "old" training aircraft some new -- and lethal -- tricks.

O'Malley is a company pilot for Hawker Beechcraft, the aircraft maker formerly known as Raytheon. He was in Washington last week as part of an extended campaign to introduce military brass, politicians and journalists (like me on the left) to the virtues of the AT-6, an armed and net-centric ISR version of the Hawker Beechcraft T-6B turboprop trainer...

The fact that the British armed forces don't have enough battlefield helicopters to make ends meet has been a known fact for several years now, but it had looked as though troops on the ground in Afghanistan would benefit from prime minister Tony Blair's late 2006 promise - albeit extracted like a bad tooth - that senior commanders would quickly receive any additional equipment they requested to fight the Taliban.

But it now appears that additional aircraft are not among the items needed to do the job in war-torn Helmand province, as secretary of state for defence Des Browne revealed yesterday that "UK force commanders have not requested additional helicopters for operations in Afghanistan since 1 September 2006." Responding to a written question in the House of Commons, Browne said: "Helicopter assets in both Afghanistan and Iraq are currently assessed by the military commanders in theatre to be sufficient to support operations successfully."

How can this be? While a deployed force of eight Army Air Corps Westland/Boeing Apache AH1 attack helicopters, four Westland Lynx AH7 utilities and eight Royal Air Force Boeing CH-47 Chinook HC2 transports seems okay, last month's highly publicised use of two Apaches to deploy four Royal Marine passengers highlighted that something is wrong with the current force mix. Where were the Lynx that are supposed to be operating in tandem with the Apaches? Struggling with the hot and high environmental conditions - even at night? Lacking the armour required to protect their crews? Or worse, operationally useless in Afghanistan?

Flight International reported this week on a formal Eurocopter proposal to supply the RAF with eight AS330 Pumas made surplus to Portuguese requirements by Lisbon's acquisition of AgustaWestland EH101s. These may, as the EADS subsidiary claims, be fine aircraft for the Afghan theatre (despite the more than 30 years of operations already beneath their rotors) and good for another decade of use, but the time has come for the UK Ministry of Defence to bite the bullet and spend good money to acquire new helicopters, and plenty of them.

However, the MoD seems to be so awash with proposals that a decision could be hard to make: should it snap up shiny new EH101s from Denmark, field new transports under a proposed lease deal or - believe this when it happens - even provide money to get the RAF's eight stored Chinook HC3s into a working state by about 2010-11? With mission commanders having missed a trick since late last year by soldiering on with what they have rather than demanding more, perhaps the sense of urgency felt by the frontline troops just isn't getting through…

One by agonising one the RAF has been getting rid of the assortment of made-in-Britian, and pretty much only-operated-in-Britain, aircraft that soldiered on through the sixties to the nineties. But the VC10, almost incredibly, is looking highly likely to hit 50 years of service.

Flight International this week reports that delays to the RAF's Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) mean that the current VC10 tankers should see service until 2015. One year later and the type (although not necessarily specific airframes I think) will have been in service for 50 years. Mostly as the service's resident 'airliner' in Shiny Ten - number 10 Squadron - more recently as a tanker.

I've got my own memories of the VC10. As a cadet I flew on one of the Shiny Ten machines on a training flight from RAF Brize Norton in the summer of '76. It was a memorable trip - I was in the cockpit as we did max angle of bank turns (60 degrees I think), an ear-popping max-rate descent, Mach-limiting runs (not sure what speed but it was high), and most dramatically - recovery from a Dutch Roll.

The Dutch Roll was spectacular from the cockpit. My recollection (might be slightly wrong) is that the drill was to disable the yaw-damper and give the rudder a nudge. With its swept wings and huge fin, the aircraft would rapidly diverge. I think the regulations allowed no more than two complete cycles before the aircraft had to be recovered with some hefty aileron input. By that time you had reached about 45 degrees of bank in both directions with lashings of yaw going on. Amazing stuff.

But then things got more exciting. I went and sat down in the cabin while my mate Richard Worrall went up-front. The cabin was configured with only about five rows of rear-facing seats and then a completely empty main deck all the way to the rear. At the rear was parked a galley trolley, of which more in a moment.

I sat down in the final row of seats and stretched out my 16 year-old legs. We began Dutch rolling again. At some point the nose went steeply down. The galley trolley, I rapidly learned, had been left unstowed and it began moving...towards me...very fast indeed. Strapped in, and under a fair bit of g force, I couldn't move. At the last second I managed to lift my legs high in the air and the trolley smashed  into my seat an inch from my backside.

The aircraft quickly recovered, and a few moments later so did I.

I told the pretty, Welsh, female air loadmaster, responsible for stowing the trolley, what had happened. She begged me not to mention it to the captain. I promised not to and, aged 16, didn't even insist on a date! (I joined the RAF myself three years later and made up for that.)

They have been on the receiving end of terrible press from the general media for years due to contractual shortcomings which pushed up programme costs and delayed the availability of a suitable training package, but the British Army's Westland/Boeing Apache AH1 attack helicopters are now receiving rave reviews after nine months of activity in southern Afghanistan.

The Army Air Corps's (AAC) 9 Regt currently maintains a force of eight Apaches and four Westland Lynx AH7 utility helicopters in the country, and has provided close quarters support to the army's 3rd Parachute Regiment and now the Royal Marines during operations against Taliban guerrillas. In some cases, its formidable 30mm cannon has been brought to bear on militants just 10m (32ft) in front of British troops, who clearly already have full trust in the abilities of the aircraft and the crews who fly them. You can read more about the Apache's recent performance in Flight International's News Focus article this week.

One officer from the 3rd Parachute Regiment who has witnessed the Apache's lethality from such close proximity says he felt more comfortable having the aircraft overhead during contact with the enemy than a fixed-wing asset such as the Royal Air Force/Royal Navy-operated BAE Systems Harrier GR7A. Despite what other army figures might famously write in their e-mails home, this isn't because the RAF is "utterly, utterly useless", but is because the Apache can remain on station looking over the shoulder of ground troops, providing a very evident presence to deter or take the fight to enemy combatants. And judging by some of the combat videos shown by the army during a recent media day at the AAC's Middle Wallop headquarters in Hampshire, even a 10-round burst from that cannon is more than enough to spoil your day.

I got the impression from 9 Regt pilots that they have been greatly frustrated by the lack of coverage that their exploits in Afghanistan have received from the mainstream press during the first nine months of UK Apache operations in the country. Maybe this is just because Iraq gets all the attention these days, but I suspect that rather like with the RAF's Eurofighter Typhoon, many journalists aren't interested in writing good news stories when something goes right after so many years of knocking.

Many people expected the Apache to fail on its debut tour of duty, due to the dusty conditions, ambient temperatures of up to 49ｰC (120ｰF) and the combined need to operate at altitudes approaching 10,000ft (3,050m). Many criticised the UK's decision to buy 67 of the aircraft, equip them all with mast-mounted Longbow fire-control radars and integrate Rolls-Royce Turbomeca RTM322 engines.

But despite the failings of the Ministry of Defence's original contract framework for the Apache, the army's experience in Afghanistan shows that planners for the large part got its configuration right. There can be little question that Boeing's AH-64D Apache Longbow is the best attack helicopter out there, and in the AH1 variant the UK has fielded some unique capabilities which make its aircraft even better in the Afghan arena than anything the US Army can bring to the fight.

Fair enough, the MoD's ｣3.1 billion ($6 billion) procurement and introduction of the Apache has at times fallen well short of the mark, but in the AH1 it now has a capability that will provide huge support to UK and coalition troops for many years to come. Perhaps it's time at last for the type - and the AAC - to receive a bit of hard-earned praise?

As the first of the four Nordic nations to receive its new multi-role helicopters, Denmark is justifiably proud of its EH101 fleet. So much so, in fact, that its air force invited a trio of British journalists to ride aboard as its newest example was delivered last month. Too good an offer to refuse at the best of times, but with Flight International about to publish a package of Nordic special features, I jumped at the chance to travel with M-512.

There would, however, be a couple of unusual conditions for the guests to come to terms with: we would have to wear rubber, and might well have to cross our legs for a bit…

The EH101 is no ordinary helicopter, and ours was to be a long journey, taking us from AgustaWestland's Yeovil manufacturing site in Somerset directly to the home of the Royal Danish Air Force's (RDAF) 722 Sqn: Karup airbase. In total, the engines would be running for 4h 20min, and the flight would be interrupted only by a brief leg stretch - but no prospect of a comfort break - on the deck of a North Sea oil rig.

I guess it highlights my limited experience in flying helicopters over large expanses of water, but my first time wearing an immersion suit was to be an entertaining one. We climbed into our strange attire to strangled cries of "Bring out the Gimp" (a reference to an undesirable character in Quentin Tarantino's 'Pulp Fiction'), while deep down we were all wondering the same thing: where's the toilet on an EH101? You guessed it; there isn't one.

The immersion suit certainly isn't one of the most attractive items a person could choose to wear, but it's probably a lot better than chinos and a smart shirt if you have to ditch in the North Sea. And trust me, the cable you can see in the photo isn't heading anywhere suspicious…

The RDAF is within three months of flying its first search and rescue (SAR) missions with the EH101 Joint Supporter from Karup, with eight of the type to progressively replace the service's 40-year-old Sikorsky S-61s. But we were bringing home Denmark's fourth of six tactical troop transport (TTT) examples, which will provide the Danish armed forces with a new battlefield capability from early next decade.

Up front for our flight was an unusual combination. In the left seat was Bak, a former Danish army Hughes 500 pilot and fixed-wing instructor, with SAR instructor Jøl - a former Saab Draken and Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter pilot - alongside him. Also aboard were a further three Danish personnel.

We took off from Yeovil at 09:31 on 17 November, with our route appropriately taking us over the nearby Royal Naval Air Station at Yeovilton and then past Royal Air Force bases Lyneham, Fairford and Brize Norton. We then passed to the north of London, came close to RAF Lakenheath and then headed out over the coast near Lowestoft at 10:45. While on the way at 5,000ft (1,520m), we also got the chance to try out some of the Joint Supporter's gleaming mission equipment, and I was able to put a quick call into the office using the aircraft's Iridium satellite phone; part of a diverse communications suite which will meet the demands of both SAR and battlefield transport duties.

Our speed was initially restricted to 120kt (222kt) due to our heavy take-off weight of 15,200kg (33,500lb); just 400kg short of the type's maximum, but this later rose to around 150kt after some of our 3,900kg fuel load began to burn off. In fact, with a strong tail wind aiding our progress, over the open water we actually achieved an indicated air speed of 197kt, frustratingly close to equaling the 200kt only achieved once before by the RDAF's EH101s.

I've never experienced this before, but our crew complained during the flight that we weren't burning enough fuel. Our initial plan - key to being able to make it directly to Karup without refuelling on the way - was to switch off one of our three engines to cut fuel consumption during the cruise. But because of our high speed we were unable to do this until after we made a brief stop on the Halfdan Alpha rig in the Danish sector of the North Sea. This was another first for me, and I was subsequently assured that the "moderate" wind speed of 26mph on the helideck - with gusts attempting to knock you off your feet - was making it quite a pleasant day out there. Not somewhere I'd want to holiday though, thanks all the same!

After a brief period of flight on two engines, we went low level along the stunning west coast of the Jutland peninsula at 200ft, before heading inland to demonstrate the capabilities of the TTT's laser obstacle warning system. It's a bad thing to ask a helicopter pilot to show off this sort of system, and we were soon heading straight at a 1,200ft-tall TV mast, with cautions and warnings blaring out as I sank that little bit lower in the cockpit jump seat. At least the kit works though! Finally, we used the aircraft's autopilot to pick up the ILS signal from Karup and automatically descended down the glide path, settling 70ft above the runway centre line, slightly nose up and at a forward speed of 60kt before Bak took control. That's a capability I'd already witnessed on a Royal Navy EH101 Merlin HM1 flight into RNAS Culdrose earlier this year, and is a reassuring club to have in the bag.

As with my two previous flights in an EH101, the flight was enjoyable and didn't feel like a long time to be on a helicopter, which bodes well for crews on future SAR missions. It did take about five hours for the immersion suit pinch marks on my wrists to fade away after we reached Karup, but thankfully as I passed on the offers of coffee until 30min from landing that was the only drama I experienced in wearing it!

In some later e-mail correspondence, one of our RDAF hosts noted: "Thank you for flying Royal Danish Airlines - hope to see you onboard again another time". I'll be waiting for my next invitation too; maybe a SAR trip next time wearing a nice orange suit?

Evidence of flight-testing of a long-rumoured robotic insect-like surveillance micro unmanned air vehicle (UAV) developed by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been demonstrated exclusively to Flight.
 
Developed during the 1970s, the CIA has displayed a mock-up of the micro UAV in its museum at its headquarters in Langley, Virginia since 2003. However until now no media organisation has been given access to the material that proved that the artificial dragonfly had been flight tested.

I fulfilled a long-held ambition a few weeks ago, when I got the chance to tick another UK military aircraft type - AgustaWestland's EH101 - off in my flight log. Surprisingly though, it turns out that Merlins (as EH101s are known in the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy rotorhead communities) are a bit like London buses: wait long enough for one and two will turn up at the same time.

I've been writing about the Merlin for quite a few years now, and one of my most exotic media trips was linked to the early development of the RN's HM1 version. This came in March 2000, when I visited the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Centre, or AUTEC, on Andros Island in the Bahamas. But I had never been given the opportunity to fly in the type until I recorded a double milestone during a UK Defence Logistics Organisation (DLO)-run media visit to RNAS Culdrose in Cornwall last month.

The Merlin seems to have been around for a very long time now, but the DLO describes the RAF and RN aircraft as "fleets in growth", and adds that it will not be until next year that the type will be declared as having reached full operational capability. This will represent the frontline availability at any one time of 15 of the RAF's 22 Merlin HC3 transports and 30 of the RN's remaining 42 Merlin HM1 anti-submarine warfare/multi-mission helicopters; another two of which have been destroyed in accidents.

After touring the UK Defence Aviation and Repair Agency's Fleetlands site - home to "depth" maintenance of the UK's AgustaWestland Lynx, Westland Sea King and Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopters (including a damaged Chinook HC2 freshly returned from Afghanistan) - I hopped aboard a navy Merlin HM1 for the flight to Culdrose. Also travelling with us were a second RN aircraft and a Merlin HC3 from the RAF's 28 Sqn.

Sitting at one of the rear operator's consoles in the 824 NAS-operated aircraft, it was hard to believe that the HM1 is on track to receive a major systems upgrade worth ｣750 million ($1.4 billion), as at first glance its flat screen displays and sophisticated lay-out seem cutting edge. But some of the aircraft's computer systems were already obsolete before the aircraft entered frontline use, making it difficult and expensive to support, and crew members say the operating system is cumbersome to use, due to its lack of touch-screen controls. With new displays and an open architecture mission system the aircraft will be easier to use and simpler to modernise in the future, they say.

The HM1 offers a really smooth ride - so much so in fact that when I moved to a forward-facing seat at the rear of the aircraft about half an hour into our 90min flight I even managed to go to sleep for about 15min. After descending through the clouds and into a murky Cornwall afternoon our tour resumed with a look at the Merlin depth maintenance facilities at Culdrose, which are used to support aircraft for both services.

My flight back to Fleetlands was in an RAF Merlin, call-signed Vortex. This feels like a different beast to the RN aircraft due to its large and largely empty rear cabin; it's only once you sit facing sideways inside the EH101 with the HC3's tail ramp open that you get a real sense of the platform's size. The ride wasn't as smooth as in the HM1, as you'd expect in a troop transport, but it was still a very different experience from riding in a Chinook. It's also an odd experience kneeling up front and chatting to your helicopter pilots for five minutes before realising that neither of them are actually doing anything much, thanks to the Merlin's autopilot.

Admittedly the UK still has some little way to go to get the best out of its maturing Merlin fleets, but planned upgrades to the HM1 and improved support and maintenance systems for both types are already beginning to make a difference on aircraft availability rates. With the RAF still maintaining a detachment of around five Merlins at Basra in southern Iraq, that can only be a good thing.

If you have an opinion about the Merlin or another nation's EH101s then I'd welcome your comments below.

Sea food is well and truly off the menu at EADS this week, following the embarrassing loss of its Barracuda unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) demonstrator to an accident. The 3t air vehicle - named after a long, slender fish - returned to the sea in a so-far unexplained ditching near the end of a weekend test flight from San Javier air base in southern Spain.

Although it can console itself with meat - and weissbier - galore in the beer halls of Munich's Oktoberfest, this is seriously bad news for EADS, which looked to be lagging behind its European rivals in flying advanced unmanned systems even before the Barracuda mishap. Alenia Aeronautica of Italy, BAE Systems of the UK, Dassault of France and Saab of Sweden all held significant bragging rights over the manufacturer, having each flown company-funded UCAV-like demonstrators over the last couple of years: respectively the Sky-X; Raven; Petit Duc; and Filur designs.

Europe's unmanned air vehicle sector is a congested place, with several of the continent's big five military airframers jostling to lead collaborative demonstrations of their combined know-how. The loss of EADS's showpiece aircraft - which was developed under a project worth around €40 million ($50 million) - confirms what we already knew: Dassault is in pole position to conduct such work, as the lead company on Europe's French-led Neuron UCAV project. BAE also appears well placed to lead development work in the UK, which seems set to go it alone.

Pardon the pun, but there was something a bit fishy about the Barracuda programme's achievements to date. EADS refused to comment on the effort for many months, before releasing sketchy details of an initial flight test campaign - also conducted from San Javier - just before April's Berlin air show, where the design was formally unveiled. Sources from rival manufacturers suggested that something had not gone to plan during this process, as the UCAV flew just once for 20min, but EADS played this down, attributing the lone sortie to "inclement weather".

The new Barracuda campaign - which I reported on for this week's print edition of Flight International from EADS Military Air Systems' technology forum in Munich on 19-20 September - also sounded to be of limited ambition, with the company saying that only two or three flights were planned, to expand the air vehicle's flight envelope through changes to its altitude and speed. The accident is believed to have happened during the first of these sorties, on 23 September, destroying EADS's lone Barracuda, which was manufactured around two years ago.

As ever, it's too early to speculate on what might have happened, but an EADS official said last week that windtunnel tests of the so-called Spiral 0 Barracuda proved that the design was "absolutely stable". Powered by a Pratt & Whitney Canada JT15D-5C turbofan engine, the air vehicle was controlled without using a joystick on the ground, but by around 10 high-level commands, such as start, go around, and land. Navigation was provided using EGNOS and GPS satellites, with the air vehicle also equipped with a laser altimeter; clever stuff all round, but equally, lots to go wrong.

Regardless of the cause of the Barracuda's loss, perhaps EADS should steer clear of marine life next time it decides to name one of its projects: let's not forget that its proposed Mako advanced jet trainer (named after a stealthy species of shark) has also vanished silently into the depths over the last couple of years, following a lukewarm market response. Luckily for the company, as military operators are maybe 15 years away from fielding operational UCAVs, perhaps it has time to recover from this mishap.

I get to go to some strange and exotic places in the course of researching my stories for Flight International, but it looked as though I was going to have to make a rare step into the political arena next month to report on an interesting-looking aerospace event in the UK.

I received an invitation from the Society of British Aerospace Companies (SBAC) to attend a joint meeting with the Amicus trade union as a side - or "fringe" - event to next month's Labour Party Conference in Manchester. Unfortunately the invitation - which concerned a debate on the UK's Defence Industrial Strategy to include a presentation by defence secretary Des Browne - arrived too late for me to register ahead of a 28 July party deadline to sign up for free media accreditation.

Well that's a nuisance, I thought, but as such deadlines are usually only there for guidance I reckoned it would probably only be a small fee for me to sign up a few weeks late. A quick call to Labour's conference unit soon put that belief in its place though: "Ah yes, but as you're signing up late there's a registration fee of ｣360," I was told. After a bit of expert haggling I was instead offered a fringe-only pass at a knock-down rate of just ｣230. "We're having to absorb increased administration costs this close to the event," the official on the other end of the line told me. No kidding!

But resilience is an important part of journalism, so I tried another avenue within the party machine and have received some good news - I can now go to the event, and at a much cheaper rate of only ｣36! There's just one catch to this opportunity though: to take advantage of this give-away rate I would actually be required to join the Labour Party.

I have a fundamental problem with this proposal though: the party website tells me that signing up by direct debit will "save the Party ｣5 a year which can be spent on campaigning, not admin". Now I know Labour has the small matter of a ｣27 million ($50 million) hole in its finances to concern itself with, but I really don't think that trying to encourage reporters to compromise their journalistic integrity is the right way for it to cover its debt.

So with apologies to the SBAC and Amicus, this is one party that I'm not interested in attending. But I'd better not say too much here, because if the events at Labour's conference in Brighton last year are anything to go by (remember the rough treatment afforded to 82 year-old Walter Wolfgang?), then heckling could still be dangerous�

Yesterday's Farnborough air show saw a long-awaited and welcome boost for the UK Royal Air Force, with the confirmation of a production order for 12 of BAE Systems' new generation Nimrod MRA4 maritime reconnaisance and attack aircraft. Announced by UK secretary of state for defence Des Browne and BAE chief executive Mike Turner, the milestone ceremony was followed by the first public appearance of an MRA4, with prototype aircraft PA03 taking time out of its busy test programme to conduct two fly-bys. The contract's confirmation had been expected this week, as reported in the latest issue of Flight International.

I've been lucky enough to see the MRA4 up close at BAE's Warton site in Lancashire twice over the last year or so, but this was my first opportunity to see the RAF's future version of the Mighty Hunter airborne. Already easily distinguished from the service's current Nimrod MR2 by its increased size and by the range of exotic lumps and bumps which are set about its fuselage, the MRA4 is also markedly different from its predecessor by its engine characteristics. The most striking thing about the new aircraft is that it sounds like a large business jet on the wing, and gone too are the plumes of black smoke that betray the presence of the MR2's Rolls-Royce Speys.

My last visit to Warton on 4 July threw up a unique opportunity to get inside the belly of the RAF's largest intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance beast of the future, and to talk to the joint BAE and RAF flight test team which is assessing the type's capabilities. The aircraft features a new glass cockpit, with "the office" now to accomodate a flight crew of just two pilots.

Down the back, the MRA4's seven onboard operator stations bring a sophisticated look and deliver improved ergonomics for the weapon system's tactical operators.

But the tiny size of the platform's galley is a cause of concern to the test team, which could one day be called upon to demonstrate the aircraft's maximum 14h endurance. As one RAF officer notes with alarm: "How are you supposed to prepare a decent curry using this?" Unless this is sorted by 2009, the Nimrod community's reputation as a "formation eating club" could be in danger!

BAE will freeze the external design of the MRA4 late this year, and the programme's three prototypes - which will later be modified to the final production configuration - will complete flight test activities during 2008. The RAF will have to wait until 2010 to form its first squadron of new Nimrods at its Kinloss base in Scotland's Morayshire, but you know what they say about good things...

So the USA is going to call the Lockheed Martin F-35A the Lightning II. Great choice - but they'll never be true WIWOLers.

By now you either know exactly what I'm talking about, or you haven't a clue. Existing WIWOLers can stop reading now.

It works like this - at any bar in any RAF mess over the past 30 years or so - but mainly aircrew messes - the cry occasionally goes up: "weewoll, weewoll!" It's provoked by the use, by any drinker, of the expression "when I was on Lightnings".

The idea is to stop the offender from banging on about his experiences on Lightnings. But the fact that it's used is grudging recognition that anyone who's served on Lightnings has usually got more and better stories than the rest of us. We are talking about the quintessential Cold War, single-seat, Mach 2, manned rocket. It had a radar that today would be classed 'not fit for purpose', two (count 'em) missiles that had about a 50/50 chance of hitting anything, and it spontaneously combusted if the pilot so much as cursed (which he did as a matter of routine.)

Lightning stories are practically infinite. The best-known is perhaps the most widely repeated story ever in the RAF, and it's entirely true. You can read about it here.

A subtler story, but my favourite, which I've only heard about, is the techncial drawing of a Lightning that was on the wall of a squadron crewroom for years and entitled something like "The Pilot's Perfect Lightning". It was a true technical diagram but with the word 'fuel' replaced in every instance by the word 'foam'. Right down to the 'overwing foam tanks' and, best of all, the 'refoaming probe' on the nose.

When I was a teenage cadet I visited 92 Squadron at RAF Gutersloh in Germany in about 1976 - all of 10 minutes or so flying time from the East German border and a few thousand miles of Western Pact territory. The pilots there, who were on four-minute alert but could get it down to about 90 seconds, told me how they called up their opposing quick reaction crew in the East on Christmas day to say hi. I spent the next five years of my life desperate to fly Lightnings - which one way or another never quite happened.

But I salute the men who flew this 60's era fighter in the night over the North Sea watching the Bears, the radar and the fuel gauge with roughly equal attention for a couple of decades. The F-35A may turn out to be a great aircraft, but I doubt it will ever produce stories like the English Electric Lightning.

So the rumours about the UK Labour Party's strategy to drag itself out of a crisis of its own making have been proven right, with perennial safe pair of hands John Reid having been moved on to the Home Office after serving less than a year as defence secretary. A feisty Scot with a penchant for tobacco and Celtic Football Club, Reid arrived in May 2005 as a breath of fresh air after his predecessor Geoff Hoon - newly appointed Minister for Europe, by the way - had thoroughly oustayed his welcome at the head of the UK armed forces.

One of Reid's first actions as defence secretary was to host a drinks reception for defence journalists in the Ministry of Defence's magnificent Henry VIII wine cellar, where he voiced an ambition to improve the previously adversarial relationship between "us" and Whitehall. He gained a lot of respect for that, and his obvious delight at having secured the job he had always wanted was also encouraging to see. Likewise, it was on Reid's initiative that UK Minister for Defence Procurement Lord Drayson produced the MoD's Defence Industrial Strategy white paper, which could make a real and positive change to how the armed forces acquire, operate and support their equipment in the future.

The woes which have recently afflicted several of Labour's Cabinet ministers had not completely passed Reid by, however, with recent criticism having been pointed his way over the MoD's slow speed of response to the Royal Air Force's loss of a C-130K Hercules transport to enemy action in Iraq in January 2005. Continued opposition to UK involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq also persisted throughout Reid's tenure, but his passionate belief that British troops are making a real difference on the ground never waivered. He was also willing to admit when the MoD had got it wrong, recently approving a fuel tank safety upgrade to the RAF's deployed Hercules - an enhancement which will cost ｣600,000 ($1.1 million) per aircraft - and also extending a detachment of Harrier GR7A ground-attack aircraft at Afghanistan's Kandahar airfield into at least 2007. The latter decision was announced during one of Reid's last actions as defence secretary, while visiting British troops on the frontline in Afghanistan (pictured below).

So what next for UK defence? Des Browne - another Scot - also only spent one year in his previous position as chief secretary to the treasury, and arrives with no prior experience in military matters. Curiously though, he previously served as parliamentary private secretary to Adam Ingram, who will now serve beneath him as armed forces minister.

Browne will be required to get up to speed on his new defence portfolio in double-quick time, with 3,300 British troops to be in place in Afghanistan's Helmand province by July and tough decisions still to be made on numerous massive procurements, such as for the RAF's Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft and the Royal Navy's two Future Aircraft Carriers. But perhaps given his treasury background Browne will find it easier to convince chancellor Gordon Brown to dig deep for defence? If today's Cabinet reshuffle is extended soon to include a change of resident in Number 10, maybe that wouldn't be such a terrible thing.

So it's good luck to Des Browne and to John Reid goodbye: I for one am sorry to see you go.

Ever wondered what it's like to fly a multi-million pound fighter very low and very, very fast? I had too, until I got the opportunity to fly in - and take control of - a Royal Air Force Harrier T10 trainer yesterday.

My invitation required me to travel to RAF Wittering in Lincolnshire; home to the RAF's 20 Sqn operational conversion unit, which prepares students to fly British Aerospace-built Harrier GR7/7A ground-attack aircraft assigned to the UK's Joint Force Harrier (JFH). And as if the weight of honing the capabilities of the next generation of RAF and Royal Navy combat pilots isn't great enough, its instructors also from time to time get to fly with less experienced aviators, such as sporting celebrities, TV presenters and journalists.

After suffering a few minutes of utter dejection when my aircraft - ZH659 - experienced a technical problem just prior to walking out to the jet on Wednesday afternoon, I returned to Wittering the following morning to achieve a life's ambition. As I expected, this was to be a very different experience to my previous flights in a two-seat RAF aircraft - the de Havilland DHC-1 Chipmunk.

Squadron pilots had told me that the Harrier's acceleration was spectacular, but our take-off run of around 300m (1,000ft) followed by a steep climb - simulating a departure from a forest clearing - was made all the more remarkable by the late appearance of a rabbit on the runway. Thankfully this was no brave bunny, and with no harm done we departed the Wittering circuit for a spell of low-level flight. I had requested that my pilot - an RN Lt Cdr who requests that I identify him only by his nickname: Tinsel - let me have a stint at the controls during our sortie, but I hadn't expected him to show such confidence in my abilities so early. My first chance to fly a Harrier, and I was at 250ft doing 450kt (520 mph)! Thankfully, the need to concentrate all my energy on the altitude and speed readings displayed on the aircraft's head-up display to keep us straight and level meant there was no time to feel nervous at the risk of something going wrong.

Having survived my first test, Tinsel took the controls to show me what the T10 can really do. Even with its Rolls-Royce Pegasus 105 engine (the GR7A uses the more powerful 107), the aircraft has a breathtaking turn of speed, while the nozzles which allow it to hover on its own thrust also enable it to perform some unique manoeuvres, such as a push-over - a kind of loop which sees the aircraft inverted but traveling at an airspeed of only 60-70kt. High g manoeuvres (well, around 4g is high in my book!) were also demonstrated, including during a simulated attack on a disused RAF airfield. I then had a second go at flying the aircraft at around 400ft, again without incident.

Several touch-and-go circuits followed at Wittering to demonstrate the various configurations available to a Harrier pilot - including a rolling vertical landing with a forward speed of around 50kt. We then came in for a final hover, during which I took the throttle and stick controls for a couple of seconds, before Tinsel performed the Harrier's signature air show trick - a braking stop bow - before landing.

I drove back to the office feeling honoured to have had the opportunity to get airborne in a Harrier, and look forward to drinking from the squadron "hover pot" (a two-pint yard-arm) next time I'm at Wittering and can get a taxi back to my hotel!

There's a joke that goes something like: "If there's a bar full of pilots, how can you tell which one flies a Harrier? He'll tell you". Apologies to all who know me, but now I know why they go on about it so much.

BAE Systems stock shot up yesterday, even by its own dizzying recent standards, and put on another 5% in the opening hours of trading today following confirmation of the UK-Saudi government-to-government deal that includes the purchase of 24 Eurofighter Typhoons.

On this occasion the market's reaction is fully justified - the deal is of huge importance to Britain's aerospace giant and is the product of agonising negotiations to sustain the Al Yamamah business relationship that has so far been worth a reported ｣43 billion.

It's true of course that 24 aircraft is not a huge quantity - but outside the USA it's about as many current generation fighters as anyone can hope to shift in an international sale in one go. It also helps keep BAE in the platform business for a while to come and beefs up its financial strength at a time when big-ticket partnerships are likely to be in its future.

But in the world of commercial aerospace things are not so rosy. BAE's activity in the field is essentially its 20% share in Airbus. And with the air transport sector growing like crazy - Airbus deliveries will be 370 in 2005 against 320 last year - life should be sweet indeed.

Not so unfortunately. BAE has been unable to shrug off its regional aircraft legacy and this year's Chapter 11 filings in the US, where bankruptcy judges have been particularly happy to see the aircraft lessors take the hit, have been a ghastly experience for it. Indeed it has just had to announce that the growth in its share of Airbus profits has been wiped out by the latest liabilities.

The talk for years has been around whether BAE should liquidate its Airbus holding, probably as part of its strategic thrust into the US. But I have the nasty feeling that this company may have to take one last hit to fix this chronic problem before it makes its 'big move'.

The US Air Force's newest fighter stands poised to enter operational service this week, but with a new name. The Lockheed Martin F/A-22 is renamed the F-22A. The USAF's official explanation says the 'F/A' designation was invented three years ago as a marketing tool aimed at selling the Raptor as a multi-role fighter to a sceptical US Congress. A series of successful operational tests has since proved the point, so the USAF is now free to revert to tradition.

Perhaps the odd cynic might wonder if there was a different explanation -- perhaps a tacit admission of the F-22A's primarily single-role air-to-air abilities until a series of spiral upgrades are complete by 2009. Those would include a two-way data link and a multi-mode active radar.

For what it's worth, General Michael "Buzz" Moseley offered his own interpretation during a roundtable with reporters at the Pentagon on 13 December. Here's his reason:

"You can take this a bit to the extreme about the F/A, because [the Raptor] is equally capable as a Rivet Joint; it's equally capable as a Compass Call; it's equally capable as all these other aircraft when you look at the wide variety of things that it does. But we had no desire to call it an RC or an EW or an F/A/EW/RC-22Something. So the simplicity of this is the air force has fighters with the nomenclature of F which should be in the lineage of the rest of the fighters."

What is your opinion?

It is rare to spot something truly new in one of the hundreds of reports issued each year by US Department of Defense's legion of internal think-tanks, much less learn of the existence of an undisclosed, revolutionary helicopter development project. But it can happen.

And so it is with the recently published, 175-page report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Mobility . Under the subheading, "Future capabilities" (page 56), it casually unveils a US Marine Corps proposal to build the largest helicopter in history. It lists two candidates to replace the USMC's venerable CH-53E - the CH-53X and the CH-53X+.

The CH-53X is now called the Heavy Lift Rotorcraft (HLR), and is correctly described by the DSB as a proposal to develop a new variant of the CH-53E that can transport a 27,000lb payload about 110nm.

Then comes the news about the CH-53X+. Here's what the report says:

"The CH-53X+ is designed to carry a 40,000-pound payload to a range of 250 nautical miles. It would require making major aerodynamic and structural changes to the CH-53E. Maintaining current disc loading would require a 116- to 120-foot-diameter rotor. This modification would in turn require a redesigned fuselage and an extended tail rotor boom.

"Some members of the helicopter design community have observed that the capabilities projected for the CH-53X+ represent a major challenge. The introduction of a new engine, a much larger rotor, higher disc loading, a new tail boom, and (probably) a new transmission amounts to a new aircraft, with many design unknowns.

"Further, a helicopter with a rotor diameter of 120 feet and takeoff weight of approximately 160,000 pounds may not be compatible with existing ships. The anticipated requirement to carry more than 40,000 pounds to ranges of 250 to 300 miles is similar to the capabilities of the Russian Mi-26 HALO helicopter. The existence of the Mi-26 suggests that the technology for such an aircraft already lies beyond technology readiness level 6. However, it is not clear that the airframe of this aircraft has the dimensions to allow internal carriage of ISO containers or Stryker vehicles."

Ordinarily, this little blurb would make quite the news story. But there's a problem - neither Sikorsky nor the Naval Air Systems Command nor the US Marine Corps' requirements branch apparently has knowledge of nor interest in such a massive new helicopter. Representatives of each organisation have theorised that the DSB may have confused the CH-53X+ proposal with a possibly aged - and long-forgotten, if it ever existed - concept for a CH-53 variant for the separate Joint Heavy Lift proposal, which is a US Army-led programme.

So perhaps for now we'll call the CH-53X+ a mystery. But if anyone spots a new variant of a CH-53E that has a fuselage the size of a Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules, give us a ring.

From Ferrari to Armani, Vespa to Versace, the Italians take their brand names seriously, so it is interesting to see where Finmeccanica bosses have taken that brand since the company began to morph from anonymous Italian industrial holding company a few years ago to one of the world's biggest aerospace and defence giants.

Rumour has it that Finmeccanica bosses came within a whisker of ditching the brand entirely before the Paris air show - it came with a lot of baggage in Italy as a cumbersome, state-owned conglomerate with an equally cumbersome name: Società Finanziaria Meccanica or Finmeccanica for short.

Roughly translated that means Finance and Engineering Group. Word was they were going to "do a Thales" - in other words, come up with a whole new brand name for the company that shed any reference to its heritage businesses. However, instead they kept the name and brought in some Italian brand designers and came up with a vibrant bright-red corporate identity that makes Ferrari look like some sleepy, provincial engineering concern.

The new look debuted at Farnborough last year in the chrome and red, sleekly curved shape of a chalet. But this year at Paris, the company went one further and the Finmeccanica stand, a vast red and chrome arena which dominated an entire side of one of the main halls, looked like the sort of thing a Formula 1 team would erect at a motor show.

At the DSEI event in London last week, they went further again, with the Finmeccanica corporate identity on the stand of the now 100%-owned AgustaWestland (Finmeccanica previously shared ownership with the UK's GKN).

The significance of this move should not be lost. In the 1980s the row over who should invest in the then-Westland Helicopters, to keep the UK's defence helicopter champion afloat, led to the resignation of a Cabinet minister, Michael Heseltine. When Finmeccanica completed its 100% purchase of the Yeovil business last year, making the Italian company one of the UK's biggest defence contractors at a stroke, it barely raised a murmur.

Now - if the DSEI stand is anything to go by - the Westland identity appears to have been completely subsumed into that of the Italian giant. Although the Westland web site www.whl.co.uk still has the old logo, it cannot be long before it too catches up. And nobody in the UK is seeing red.