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Aviation History
1998
1998 - 0696.PDF
The RAF's weapons instructor syllabus moves out of the study room and into the cockpit Class war DOUGLAS BARRIE/RAF LEUCHARS THE TARGET is a power station in the Hebrides, Scotland, with the aim being to disable its generating capability for four to six weeks. A strike force of Panavia Tornado GRls is tasked with the mission - fol lowing devolution, relations between Scotland and England have taken a turn for the worse. Well, not quite. The aircraft in question are being flown out of RAF Leuchars on the east coast of Scotland on a training mission as part of the operations phase of the Royal Air Force's Combined Qualified Weapons Instructor (CQWI) course. The CQWI is managed by the RAF's Air Warfare Centre - the first course was imple mented in June 1996 and two Tornado F3 and GR1 courses are run each year, along with one Sepecat Jaguar GR1B and a British Aerospace Harrier GR7 course. The CQWI course emerged as a result of the RAF determining that "...QWIs need more tactically oriented training, with less emphasis on academic instruction and more on air weapons ranges". Previous QWI courses had been run only by the type operational conversion unit (OCU) on an in-house basis. The emphasis within the OCU was on instruction, with not enough on the weaponry, says one Air Warfare Centre (AWC) senior officer. The role of the QWI is to provide at squadron level the specialist knowledge of weapons and tactics upon which the unit com mander can draw in response to specific mission tasking orders. Overhauling the approach to QWI training got under way as far back as 1993, with all the OCU courses coming under scrutiny to deter mine elements common to them. To those within the AWC it became apparent that the Tornado and Jaguar strike aircraft ground and operational phases could be brought together. The CQWI effectively reflects the impact on RAF training doctrine of the end of the NATO- Warsaw Pact confrontation, combined with the lessons drawn from the Gulf War. COMFORTING FAMILIARITY If the Cold War provided any kind of reassur ance, however bleak, it was, as one senior officer of the then Department of Air Warfare put it, the "comforting familiarity with the [Euro pean] Central Region". Throughout the East-West confrontation the UK air defence and Central European front regions provided the RAF with the paradigm upon which its operational doctrine was based. The welcome end of the Cold War left the RAF having to reflect a radically changed environ ment in its operational art- the GulfWar was to highlight many areas which the air force need ed to address. The Tornado GR1 had been designed to meet low-level requirements in Central Europe, with the associated operational and flightcrew training syllabus similarly driven. The GulfWar, and subsequent low intensity operations, have shown the need for a more flexible tactical approach. The CQWI course draws students from air crew who are finishing their first or second tour. One Air Warfare Centre officer says: "The stu dents are all air combat leaders, with all two ship, and many cleared to lead four ship, forma tions." The course covers a combined ground school, bringing together Tornado GR1, Harrier GR7 and Jaguar GR1B aircrew. Pooling together the RAF's various strike air craft types within the CQWI course also reflects the likelihood that, for many future operations, the units will at least be working in consort, if not in mixed packages. Unlike the previous OCU approach, the AWC draws heavily on external support in broadening the scope of the course. Students receive as many as 30 external lectures, with contributions from defence aerospace manu facturers, the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, and weapons and threat specialists from the UK Ministry of Defence. Areas covered include the characteristics of 30 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 25 - 31 March 1998
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