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Aviation History
1999
1999 - 2707.PDF
Mission possible EW aircraft, tankers and AWACS turn the impossible into the achievable STEWART PENNEY/RAF BRIZE NORTON/ RAFWADDINGTON DEEDEE DOKE/AVIANO AB/RAF MILDENHALL MISSIONS OVER Iraqi and Yugoslavia would not be possible without force multipliers such as the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), electronic warfare (EW) assets and tankers. The UK Royal Air Force's Boeing E-3D Sentry AEWls have operated over the former Yugoslavia with similar aircraft from the US and French air forces and the multinational NATOAEWForce. The success of the AWACS during me Allied Force operation over Kosovo is clear; there were no mid-air collisions and no blue-on-blue inci dents, where friendly forces were attacked. Without tankers, fighters would be restricted to striking targets around the edges of hostile coun tries. Without EW protection, losses would be significant and politically unacceptable. For the RAF's Sentrys, lessons from Kosovo mirrored experience from recent large exercis es which found that more mission consoles and radios are required. The focus of the Sentry's mission for die RAF has shifted from defensive AEW to offensive AWACS, says Sqn Ldr Jeff Portlock, flight commander plans, 2 3 Sqn. Gp Capt Ron Cook, Station Commander Waddington, says planning is under way to give the Sentrys five more operator consoles and additional radios. The advantage of nine con soles is die speed of information flow around die operators, but experience has shown tliat there is a risk of reaching workload saturation. Pordock says: "We could do better widi more seats." His equivalent on 8 Sqn Ldr Archie McCallum adds: "The aircraft is a distribution system. We fuse data and distribute it. Wthout bodi es on the air craft and die radios, we're not doing our best." More radios are needed because so many air craft need to link with the AWACS. As one operator says: "Everybody wants to talk to the AWACS." The JTIDS tactical datalink proved invaluable during Allied Force. Portlock pre dicts that, like precision-guided munition capa bilities today, in die next 20 years, possession of JTIDS will become a prerequisite for joining a coalition force. Kosovo air campaign commander Lt Gen Mike Short believes jamming platforms such as the Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowler are vital. "We use a lot of them and we placed a lot of stress on die system. There are only X num ber of those platforms." ARCHETYPAL FORCE MULTIPLIER Sqn Ldr Tim Walker, flight commander oper ations, 101 Sqn, says recent operations justify the need for tankers and show that the replace ment of BAC VClOs is necessary - a process under way with the RAF's Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) competition. Kosovo "reinforced how vital air-to-air refu elling is... tanking was die archetypal force mul tiplier", says Officer Commanding 216 Sqn, Wg Cdr Dave Williams. Tankers allowed the air commander to keep aircraft on station longer, and when extra strike aircraft were deployed, 38 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 15 - 21 September 1999
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