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Posted on 09/18/2007 5:00:33 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Saudi Arabia reveals progress of Tornado upgrade
By Craig Hoyle
While reports of Saudi Arabia's imminent order for 72 Eurofighter Typhoons dominated the headlines, eight of the nation's Panavia Tornado fighters were taking part in a low-profile exercise with the UK Royal Air Force. Originally named "Saudi Sword" but later rebranded "Saudi Green Flag", the bilateral manoeuvres marked the first time Riyadh had sent its Tornados outside the Gulf region, and were also evidence of a burgeoning relationship between the allies, which have both operated the swing-wing aircraft for more than two decades but formally trained together on the type for the first time only last year.
Movement towards the delayed Typhoon contract signature has grabbed the headlines following controversy over the UK's previous Al Yamamah arms deals with Saudi Arabia, which have included the delivery of equipment such as Tornado interdictor strike and air defence variant fighters and BAE Systems Hawk trainers. Less well known is that the government-to-government framework continues to generate fresh activity on the Royal Saudi Air Force's legacy fleet, with until now closely-guarded modernisation work having already been done to its Tornado IDS aircraft.
For the first time, the air force has disclosed details of its ongoing Tornado Sustainment Programme (TSP), and revealed that the aircraft which visited the UK have already completed the first phase of the major upgrade effort. Poised to enter its second phase of modernisation work in Saudi Arabia, the ongoing effort will ultimately equip the IDS fleet with a range of new precision-guided weapons and enhanced targeting equipment, in many cases common with those systems already fielded by the UK Royal Air Force's Tornado GR4s, up to six of which took place in the event.
"All the aircraft on the exercise are TSP stage one-modified, and stage two will come soon," said Lt Col Abdulaziz Al Qdairi, officer commanding the RSAF's 75 Sqn and the service's Green Flag detachment commander, during an exclusive interview with Flight International at RAF Lossiemouth, Scotland. Performed in Saudi Arabia by local companies working in partnership with BAE, initial enhancements to the aircraft have focused on cockpit modernisation, such as the addition of GPS navigation, changes to some displays and switches and the introduction of a new radio architecture, said Al Qdairi.
While such work has assisted the air force in deploying its aircraft over a long distance and operating under a coalition scenario with the RAF, a key aspect of the Green Flag deployment was to give its crews the opportunity to train alongside aircraft from the UK service's 617 Sqn, which recently returned from an intensive period of combat operations over Iraq. Riyadh hoped to draw early lessons from the unit's experience in using advanced targeting and reconnaissance pods, plus precision-guided weapons, while it finalises its equipment list for the next element of the TSP project.
Saudi development aircraft based at BAE's Warton flight test site in Lancashire were photographed earlier this year carrying a wide array of sensors and weapons, including MBDA's more than 250km (135nm)-range Storm Shadow cruise missile.
Riyadh has also long been cited as a potential buyer of the RAF's next-generation precision-guided bomb - Raytheon Systems' Paveway IV - and MBDA's Brimstone air-launched anti-armour weapon, the latter of which played an important part in the latest exercise.
"TSP is upgrading the aircraft so that it will be capable of carrying any advanced weapons available not only Brimstone and Storm Shadow," said Al Qdairi, adding that other potential acquisitions could include Paveway/Enhanced Paveway-series bombs and an air-to-air missile such as MBDA's Asraam. "We hope we will have such as these to make sure our air force has the latest weapons and technology." The goal is to reach the stage that the RAF is currently using with its GR4s," he continued.
While flying activities during Green Flag ran between 28 August and 6 September, the first advance elements of the more than 200-strong Saudi detachment arrived at Lossiemouth on 13 August, with initial support equipment and its first fighters following within a further five days. In addition to testing the RSAF's ability to deploy its Tornados from Dhahran, the exercise also provided an ideal opportunity for the RSAF to test the capabilities of its air transport fleet, with numerous sorties flown using its Boeing KE-3A tanker/transports and Lockheed Martin C-130s.
The deployment was a lot of hard work, but easier than we expected," said Al Qdairi. The deployment route included inflight refuelling by KC-130s before departing Saudi airspace, followed by stops at Suda Bay in Greece, Trapani in Italy and RAF Marham in the UK. The air force sent a total of 18 Tornado crews to participate in the exercise, with the majority of these also gaining a first chance to fly alongside RAF Typhoons.
The RAF says more than 65 sorties were flown by the end of the exercise, with up to two waves of aircraft having been launched each day. Missions typically lasted around 90min, with no inflight refuelling conducted during the bilateral manoeuvres. Saudi personnel also used Thales-managed simulators at Lossiemouth as part of their training.
Operations began with familiarisation flights during which two RSAF aircraft accompanied an RAF Tornado while their crews were introduced to UK airspace and air traffic control procedures, and also cleared to perform initial low-level work down to 500ft (152m). Activities were progressively expanded to introduce bombing runs at the Tain weapons range using 3kg (6.6lb) practice bombs, and to operate against simulated surface-to-air missile threats at the UK's Spadeadam electronic warfare range.
Examples of composite air operations during this period included the joint Tornado force conducting training attacks with RAF aircraft simulating the use of MBDA Alarm anti-radiation missiles - in use by both air forces - while Saudi aircraft conducted air strikes. In a key demonstration of possible future weapons tactics, the sorties also involved several UK Tornados carrying two Brimstone weapon systems, with each comprising a rail launcher with three missiles.
The last three flying days also introduced an air-to-air threat, with four Typhoons flown by 3 Sqn pilots from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire initially providing a "hostile" presence. Exercise activity peaked on 5 September with a VIP demonstration involving a "blue" force of six Saudi IDS, four GR4s and four Typhoons supported by a Boeing E-3D Sentry airborne early warning aircraft and opposed by a "red" package of four RAF Tornado F3s.
"Our objectives were to get interoperability between the RSAF and the RAF, to enhance new weapons planning and fly with coalition forces like the Typhoon, not just to fly hours," said Al Qdairi. "The exercise has enabled us to benefit from the UK's experience in smart weapons tactics. It was successful from all aspects, and we gained a lot."
Saudi Arabia's Tornado force more typically conducts joint exercises with the nation's Gulf Cooperation Council allies and Egypt from its home bases, according to Al Qdairi. "There is always a continuation of tactics development to improve aircrew knowledge and get the maximum benefit from the aircraft," he said.
Encouraged by the success of Green Flag and its previous "Lone Frame" detachment of 617 Sqn Tornado GR4s to Dhahran in early 2006, the UK is now looking to formalise the bilateral relationship by pursuing annual exercises which will alternate between the countries. "We are learning to work as a coalition package," stressed an RAF officer involved in the latest exercise, "not trying to impose our ways". The RSAF also shares the enthusiasm to extend the previous collaboration, according to Al Qdairi. "We have an excellent relationship with our host squadron, which gives us interest to work more," he said.
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Aren’t those RAF roundels on the Tornado with the Stormshadow? RSAF roundels are green and white concentric circles with a swords and palm tree logo.
Britemp is correct. Those are RAF colors.
Interesting - I’ve never seen an RAF Tornado with that type of desert camo - it’s darker than the RAF type. Looks like a Saudi Tornado with RAF markings.
The flag is the giveaway & it’s the Saudi flag.The Saudis haven’t officially yet purchased the Storm Shadow,so I think those were evaluation tests in Britain a few months back.
Poor Saudis, having to fly that “Euro iron.”
The F-22 would blast them to ribbons before they knew what was happening.
‘Poor Saudis, having to fly that “Euro iron.”
The F-22 would blast them to ribbons before they knew what was happening.’
Not surprising considering the Tornado is getting on for 25 years old. A new Typhoon would blast a couple of F15’s to ribbons before they knew what happned and they still make up the bulk of the US air force.
http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=673262005
A Hungarian Gripen supposedly downed a Typhoon in exercises in Italy-found the claim on the Gripen website itself.Would be pretty bad publicity for the Typhoon,if even remotely realistic !!
http://www.gripen.com/en/MediaRelations/SuccessStories/070918_hungary.htm
However, In May 2007 Hungarian Air Force Gripens flew to Italy for their first international deployment, Exercise Spring Flag 07, in Italy.
“The aim of the exercise,” says Hungarian Air Force Colonel Nandor Kilian, “was to deploy our Gripens overseas, operate them with minimum support from an austere location, be interoperable and co-operative – and expose our pilots to an air picture with large numbers of active aircraft. We took four aircraft – two Gripen Ds and two Gripen Cs – but we flew all of our operational missions with the two-seat Ds to give maximum exposure and experience to our team of nine pilots.”
Exercise Spring Flag 2007, held at Italy’s Decimomannu air base in Sardinia, was a major NATO event involving combat assets from France (E-3), Germany (F-4F ICE), Italy (AV-8B, F-16C, Tornado ECR and Eurofighter Typhoon), NATO (E-3) Turkey (F-16C). Electronic warfare support was provided by the dedicated Falcon 20 jammers of the NATO MEWSG (multi-service electronic warfare support group). Tanker support came from Italy, the UK and the US.
The Gripens flew as part of the hostile ‘Red Force’, largely conducting beyond visual range air battles with the ‘Blue Force’. Colonel Kilian recalls, “We flew 24 sorties over the two-week exercise, and we launched every day with our two planned Gripen Ds. We were the only participants to have a 100% operational record with the scheduled aircraft.”
“In Hungary we just don’t have large numbers of aircraft to train with, but in Spring Flag we faced COMAO (combined air operations) packages of 20, 25 or 30 aircraft. The training value for us was to work with that many aircraft on our radar – and even with our limited experience we could see that the Gripen radar is fantastic. We would see the others at long ranges, we could discriminate all the individual aircraft even in tight formations and using extended modes. The jamming had almost no effect on us – and that surprised a lot of people.”
“Other aircraft couldn’t see us – not on radar, not visually – and we had no jammers of our own with us. We got one Fox 2 kill on a F-16 who turned in between our two jets but never saw the second guy and it was a perfect shot.”
“Our weapons and tactics were limited by Red Force rules, and in an exercise like this the Red Force is always supposed to die, but even without our AMRAAMs and data links we got eight or 10 kills, including a Typhoon. Often we had no AWACS or radar support of any kind, just our regular onboard sensors – but flying like that, ‘free hunting’, we got three kills in one afternoon. It was a pretty good experience for our first time out.”
LOL! The article you linked wrote about an impromptu air encounter between a Typhoon and F-15Es. The E model (Strike Eagle) is the ground-attack version of the F-15. Hardly suprising the Strike Eagle pilots came off the worse!
If they’d been F-15Cs, however, it might have been a different story!
Wow, and all the time I thought Typhoons were the most advanced among the lot of fighters in the race for winning the IAF deal.
Only problem with Gripen is the range. Anyways what are the chances for Gripen to win the contract?
The E-model is fitted with most of the gizmos that the F-15C has.Even when compared with the F-15C,the Eurofighter is much lighter & has a smaller Radar cross section, with greater agility due to it’s design.
Have really no clue about the Gripen’s chances for the Indian contract,because we don’t know how the companies will respond to the RFPs.The planned Gripen NG will have range increase by upto 40%,but it will come with an out & out American engine,so there might be export licensing issues there-esp since the Super Hornet also happens to use the same engines.As it’s Swedish promoters say,the Gripen is the perfect complement for the SU-30MKI esp if you take the LCA out of the equation & wait for a 5th generation aircraft-that will leave the IAF with only 3 major aircraft types after 2025.
With American companies opening up for defense exports to India I dont think that should be a big issue. The major reason why I am not in favour of the Saab Gripen is because it has less range, payload and choosing the Gripen will likely kill the LCA, which is not a very good idea. LCA gives us the option and the ability to design/build our own jets in future. Maybe a combination of Gripens and Superhornets, if we are thinking of going for 2 different airframes (although I still think its highly unlikely).
For future is there a chance we may have F-35s, Pakfa and also the MCA or just one or two of these?
It all depends on what is the status of the MCA project at the moment.All that exists are a few computer generated images of it & claims of having 2 engines,internal carriage of weaponry etc.Chances are it maybe merged with the 5th Gen. aircraft project that the Russians are working on.If tech-transfer & requirement issues are not resolved with the Russians,then joining in on the PAK-FA may not happen.I don’t think there is wide-ranging interest in the F-35 beyond considering it as a replacement for the Navy Harriers.If it’s only purchased for the Navy,it won’t cause a logistic problem.
The problem with getting the F-414 will be if the Gripen trumps over the Super Hornet!!The US( & most exporters) refuse export licenses if their own products are not considered.Israeli companies have suffered on this account more than once.Buying the Super Hornet & Gripen NG would be meaningless given that you could rework the LCA with the F-414.Problem is that the LCA as it is,is at the technology level of the Gripen-A/B variants ie. almost 15 years behind the proposed Gripen N/G.So there may not be much enthusiasm in modifying an aircraft which the IAF has barely got into service.
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