By Patrick Benham-Crosswell – 6 minute read
THE ROYAL AIR FORCE operates some of the most sophisticated combat aircraft in the world. The F35 is the current gold standard and the latest version of the Typhoon, the GR4, is a highly capable combat-proven aircraft. Work is underway on Tempest, which will replace Typhoon, in line with the RAF’s wise policy of replacing half its fighter fleet at a time, thereby always having one proven advanced jet and a new, cutting edge one. Ostensibly all is fine.
Look a little deeper though and there are problems. Big ones. For a start, the RAF is 10 per cent under strength. If you follow the link it will tell you that “In 2015 the MOD stopped releasing detailed information on pinch points into the public domain on national security grounds.” A pinch point is MOD speak for a skills gap. One of the skills shortfalls is almost certainly pilots.
A recent OFSTED report stated, “in the worst cases, trainee pilots are waiting several years to start their flying training. Trainees report that this delay affects not just their careers but their motivation and personal lives.” Glossing over why on earth OFSTED are involved in military training, this is simply ludicrous. Pilots age and retire and if there is not a stream of new ones arriving, billions of pounds of weaponry becomeuseless. Those who have studied the Battle of Brittain, or even seen the film, know that the main problem the RAF faced was a shortage of well-trained pilots, which is why the Poles and Czechs were vital. How, in the name of all that is holy, can the RAF be failing to train pilots?
The answer is that the RAF privatised elementary and basic multi-engine flight training under a 25-year PFI initiative. While this might or might not make financial sense, like all PFIs it removed delivery from the chain of command to a commercial contract. Rather than the head of the RAF being able to act immediately, decisively and independently when things go wrong or priorities change, as they tend to in any sphere over 25 years, he had to renegotiate – which inevitably takes time and money. Worse, the counterparty on any PFI is there to make a profit – that’s what commerce does. They do that in multiple ways, for example by minimising the capital assets employed – that means using fewer aircraft. What could possibly go wrong?
In 2022 the MOD admitted that it had more F35s than it had pilots and that it was taking eight years to train one, rather than the intended two or three. That’s not because the syllabus is more demanding, it’s a matter of availability of instructors and aircraft. This failed programme is also impacting on helicopter pilots.
Pilots usually join on a 12-year engagement, the plan being that they train for three years and defend the Realm for almost a decade. If the training process takes eight years due to PFI incompetence, those who complete it defend the Realm for just four years. Then they face the choice of staying with RAF fast jets or flying for the airlines on double the money, less incompetence and a much reduced chance of death. As they’re probably married with children by that time the odds are stacked against them choosing to remain. They may not be doing Mach 10 with their hair on fire, but they are providing for their family and avoiding the lunacy of the MOD.
The RAF also has procurement problems – most notably in its purchase of airborne early warning (AWACS) aircraft. It used to operate seven E3D Sentry aircraft. It retired them to save money (presumably to pay PFI bills) in 2021. They have been replaced by just three E7 Wedgetails, the first of which arrived (over a year late) in September. How the RAF plans to deliver a 24/7 capability with just three airframes is a mystery. They originally wanted five, indeed they have paid for five radars but can’t get a refund. That the incoming head of the RAF, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, defended that as saving money for spares says much about the quality of the senior officers running the armed forces and the ignorance of those who question them. Until the Wedgetails are fully operational, current target 2025, the RAF has precisely zero capability, leaving it reliant upon allies (NATO has some and of course the US has plenty more). For sure the RAF Typhoons shooting down Iranian drones relied on someone with AWACS, and that wasn’t the RAF.
The RAF’s fundamental problem is that the tools of its trade are very expensive (one F35 costs around £90 million). Worse, they need vast amounts of maintenance and have a very finite life. That life can be extended by remanufacturing (necessary to replace core parts close to their metal fatigue life), but that’s far from cheap.
It’s not just the airframes, many of the weapons also have finite lives, known as pylon life. If a war missile (not a training one) is strapped to a jet it suffers the same forces as the jet. The vibrations and stresses don’t do it any good, nor will moisture (commonly known as clouds). The net result is that a “war-shot” may well not last for more than a few days. Training missiles are designed to be more robust, but they too have a life. Which means they constantly need replacing and, being sophisticated bits of manufacturing, they aren’t cheap either. The standard current air to air missile, the AMRAAM is $1 million each.
There is limited good news. The RAF still participates in the American run Red Flag exercises and acquits itself well, as it did when it joined both the defence of Israel and the air attacks on the Houthis. More convincingly, BAe Systems is an exceptionally close partner in the F25 programme – getting some 11 to 13 per cent workshare (and revenue) in every jet built.
The RAF is also in the Tempest sixth generation fighter programme, (sometimes hubristically referred to as the Global Combat Air Programme), led by BAe. Italy and Japan are also in the programme, with the Tempest due in service in 2035 – so far the UK taxpayer has spent £2 billion on it, which funds it until 2025. Further, substantial sums will be required. As yet the government has not committed to them, although the Prime Minister made positive noises at the Farnborough Air Show.
Tempest has competition. France, Spain and Germany have a project. The US Navy has a project, (F/A XX) and so does the US Air Force, which anticipates producing a system with a price tag of “multiple hundreds of millions of dollars per aircraft”, just like the F-22 Raptor it is intended to replace.
Stealth is expensive and difficult to maintain. In US service the F35 has yet to meet the required availability. No doubt part of that is parsimony with (expensive) spares, but that’s triggered by usage. Trimming the spares budget to make things look affordable or buy more is a universal military vice. (Note that no equipment is ever 100 per cent available as there will always be some in maintenance. 40 per cent of the Typhoon fleet is typically in some sort of maintenance but that is how operations are planned. Provided the RAF has the 10 Typhoons per squadron that it needs everything is working )
Stealth is vital in high threat environments, as would be encountered in confrontations with nations equipped with advanced, extensive air defence systems, such as Russia, China and some of their allies or clients. However most recent fast jet operations have been in low threat environments. The Houthis have no air force. Neither did the Taliban in Afghanistan. The ISIL anti air capability is minimal, yet operations against them were all conducted by jets designed, equipped and maintained to operate against Tier One opponents. Surely lesser aircraft could have been used at a similar risk level and vastly less cost?
The RAF’s F-35 costs around £90 million, about a third of the price of a Type 31 Frigate. Which weapon provides more military capability, deterrence or soft power? Certainly an F-35 can get almost anywhere unseen and launch a weapon, killing a jet or a land target. On the other hand they’re almost useless as a deterrent precisely because they’re stealthy. A Type 31 Frigate can be very visible. It carries rather more weaponry, including Tomahawk land attack missies as well as anti-air and anti-ship missiles. It can carry Royal Marines and a helicopter. Like most warships, it can host a diplomatic drinks party in its helicopter hangar.
The RAF is still receiving its first tranche of 48 F35s. One fell off an aircraft carrier and four remain in the US, presumably for training, trials and development so the total in the UK will eventually be 43. The original RAF requirement was 138 jets, although whether the funding existed was never completely clear. It seems unlikely that a further order will be placed before the Healey review completes. Unless the RAF can produce and retain the pilots there’s not much point in purchasing the airframes. That’s true of the Tempest as well.
That leads to the entire debate about the future of manned combat aircraft. For a long time the single biggest design constraint for combat jets was the pilot. Fitting them in makes planes bigger, keeping them alive limits performance. Drones and missiles may be the way ahead – they don’t need recruiting and they don’t get upset if they’re not actually flying. They certainly don’t go and train a potentially hostile foreign power.
The immediate problem Mr Healey must fix, ideally long before his review completes, is the RAF’s haemorrhage of trained personnel, and clear the logjam in pilot training. Without that, there will be no RAF.
In the next and final article in this series I suggest how Mr Healey might start doing his job, which is ensuring The Realm is defended, rather than employing a bunch of apparatchiks to tell him there is something rotten in the Ministry of Defence. The dogs on the streets know that.
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Following a decade as an armoured corps officer Patrick Benham-Crosswell spent several years as a defence analyst before migrating into commerce. He comments on defence matters for a number of publications and TV stations, writing a well-received book “The Dangerous World of Tommy Atkins: How Land Warfare Works” (updated 2022). His blog is https://viewsfrommycab.substack.com/
Photo of Typhoons in RAF service by Jim van de Burgt from Wijk bij Duurstede, Netherlands – 2018, Fairford, Flight, RAF, Typhoon FGR4 – 6836.jpg, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=153897208