The Life Guard and the RAF

It seems that former Life Guard and international crooner James Blunt had a bad experience trying to get to a morale boosting concert in Afghanistan.

On the face of it everything that could go wrong at the hands of the RAF did and the concert had to be cancelled.

As  former air force officer (in my case the RAAF) it really hurts to hear these tales of woe.  Being a fighter jock is great and glamorous but the real projection of strategic power in the sorts of conflicts we chose to fight these days can only be achieved by the so called “trash haulers”.  But it appears that they aren’t very good at it.  A big size 12 boot up the arse is definitely required here.

Close Air Support after Harrier

Now that the Harrier is history the question arises as to how we will provide close air support for land operations in Afghanistan.

Big fast jets, whilst being able to deliver a large precise punch are not really very good at sustained close air support (CAS) to troops on the ground.

During the Vietnam war although F-4s, F-100s and F-5s were all used successfully for air support one of the most effective CAS aircraft was the A-1 Skyraider in various guises.  It carried a big load of munitions and could loiter close to the forward edge of the battle area and so be on call at short notice.

The modern version is the A-1 is the Warthog but I can’t see us buying them for the CAS role.

But we could buy AT-6 Texans, probably quite cheaply at that and since the Mod has made the first step in buying non-Brit gear there seems no argument not to.

Rivet Joint morphs into Air Seeker

 

At last the coalition seem to have taken a sensible procurement decision to forgo “Made in Britain” kit and acquire three US RC-135 W Rivet Joint aircraft for the joint electronic intelligence role.  These will replace the ageing Nimrod R1s.

This will provide four advantages over the Nimrod:

• The RC-135 airframe is mature robust and virtually indestructible having been developed from the evergreen KC-135 tanker which is still in front line USAF service.
• The RAF will now have full interoperability with the US, unlike the Nimrod
• There will be three of them rather than only two Nimrods
• They're available now

Lets hope that the Government and its recently appointed new head of MoD procurement will will take lots more sensible defence procurement decisions rather than buying only British kit (because it keeps British jobs) like the previous and utterly incompetent government.