Briefings : Ocean, Trident, Eurofighter crash

• HMS Ocean has begun an anti-drugs deployment in the Caribbean. The assault carrier will also be on hand to provide assistance to British territories in the area during the hurricane season (unless its bought home early to save a few quid).
• The uncertainly about the Vanguard replacements and the continuation of Britain's nuclear deterrent is concerning some British defence companies especially how it may effect other defence spending.
• Denmark has turned down a request by NATO to send F-16s to Afghanistan saying they have already done enough. Indeed unlike some other countries in the alliance the Danes have contributed a lot to the fight there.
• A Eurofighter has crashed in Spain on a regular training flight. The fighter was being piloted by a Saudi Air Force pilot who died in the crash though a Spanish pilot also aboard managed to eject.
• Israel is pressing ahead with its JSF purchase after getting approval to install Israeli equipment and support Israeli munitions. The F-35I will also have its EW suite kept up to date by the US to IDF requirements.

RAF Hercules crash lands

A Hercules C1 has made a wheel up landing at RAF Brize Norton. The incident happened late last week and blocked up the runway which is the main transport hub for the British air bridge supporting operations in Afghanistan. The Hercules was on a training flight when it crashed, there were no injuries reported. The ageing C1s are gradually being withdrawn of course.

Briefings : Red Arrows, JSF, More fighters

Two Hawks from the RAF's display team the Red Arrows were involved in a mid-air collision during training in Crete. One Hawk was destroyed and the pilot had to eject, he suffered non-fatal injuries. The other Hawk was able to land. The Bear is active it seems, RAF fighters have been scrambled 20 times over the last year to intercept Russian aircraft approaching British airspace.

Scratch one BAE Hawk, even Scotty couldn't fix this

The JSF may be a project rapidly stampeding out of control, at least cost wise, but at least there is being made some decent progress with the flight testing. The V/STOL F-35B has now made a vertical landing. Denmark is delaying it's decision as to whether to buy the JSF or some other fighter until 2014. Romania meanwhile is to buy 24 second-hand F-16s to replace it's Soviet era MiG-21s.

Briefings : Combat ISTAR, Endurance, F-X

The RAF now had "combat ISTAR" over Afghanistan thanks to platforms like the Reaper and views the combination of intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance capabilities at the heart of it's new concept of operations. The RAF say it's emphasis has now moved from precision attack to exploting the information space. You can read more jargon in the article. A long-endurance UAV is next on the RAF's list, a competition to procure a medium altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle will be launched. BAE's Mantis and the Predator C Avenger are considered contenders.

A lack of training has been blamed for the engine room flooding which nearly lost HMS Endurance in 2008. Incorrectly connected air control lines to a hull valve allowed water into the ship which ended in the ship nearly capsizing off the Straits of Magellan. Thales UK have won a contract to support the Daring destroyer classes' communications systems.

Frustrated by a fruitless wait for the F-22 Japan is moving ahead with it's F-X competition and will buy 40-50 fighters to replace it's F-4EJ Phantoms. Contenders include the Typhoon and the Super Hornet. The Rafale will not be a contender, Dassault say Japan will never buy a European fighter. Which is probably true to be honest.

Briefings : Exercise, Russian bomber, MAV

The MOD have a photo gallery from Operation Cold Response currently being held in Norway. The Royal Navy, Royal Fleet Auxiliary and Royal Marines took part in an amphibious assault.

Russia, having got it's next generation fighter the T-50 into the air, will switch it's attention to a new strategic bomber to replace the Bear and the Blackjack in the next decade PM Putin has said. Meanwhile 3 more T-50s will be built before the end of the year.

The USAF is working on a "killer micro-drone" called Anubis with AeroVironment, a killer MAV that can engage high-value manovering targets, like insurgent leaders in pick-up trucks? The Royal New Zealand Air Force's display team, the Red Checkers, have been grounded following a minor mid-air collision.

Briefings : Falklands, Trainers, Afghanistan

Drilling for oil has begun off the Falklands meanwhile Argentina is looking to upgrade it's Super Etendard attack aircraft, though not until after 2015. VT has won a contract extension to keep maintaining the RAF's fleet of Tucano T1 trainers until 2014.

The NATO fight in Afghanistan has suffered another "hearts and minds" set-back after an air strike on a convoy killed over 20 civilians. The Afghan government are not happy about it though in a situation like Afghanistan where the combatants on one side do not wear uniforms these sort of accidents are unfortunately going to happen.

Poland has grounded it's 2 C-130Es after one suffered structural damage earlier in the month after performing a 4g maneuver over Afghanistan. The Hercules are surplus US owned aircraft on loan to the Poles.

Briefings (09/01/10) : Chinook, Afghanistan, A400M

Following on from the leaked MOD documents that indicated problems with the Chinook Mk2 engine control software before the Mull of Kintyre crash the Chief of the Air Staff has said that the FADEC software was not to blame. This was later attacked by the former chief test pilot of the Chinook Mk2 and said the original pilot gross negligence verdict was unfair.

How to rebuild the Afghanistan army, by someone who helped rebuild Liberia's army.

The A400M turbulence continues, France is insisting the project continues though Germany appears unwilling to put any more money in. Staying with France the French helicopter carrier Jeanne d'Arc retires in May after a 50 year service, and could become a helipad for the rich!

Ark Royal suffers fire scare

HMS Ark Royal has suffered a third fire scare since it's refit when part of one of it's gas turbines overheated during trials. The gas turbine has to be cooled with fire sprinklers after it set off the fire alarm. There no injuries in the incident, which happened before Christmas, and the ship was able to continue with it's trials.

Was software to blame for Chinook crash?

The BBC say they have received evidence that the crash of a Chinook helicopter in 1994 that killed 29 people may have been due to faulty software in the engine management system. In the official enquiries the pilots were found guilty of gross negligance but the BBC say the MOD documents it has received, written months before the crash, say there were problems with the Chinook Mk2's airworthiness and the engine control software, FADEC, was "positively dangerous".

The MOD replied that the Chinook Mk2 has had a very safe service history since the crash on the Mull of Kintyre and that the MOD documents in question were availably to the Inquiry team and were not new evidence. The MOD have refused to reopen the Inquiry despite later inquiries in the House of Lords and House of Parliament that found the gross negligence verdicts on the pilots unjustified.

Briefings (04/01/10) : Iraq, Chinook, Airships

In December there were no US combat fatalities in Iraq, the first time there haven't been since the start of the war in Iraq. Though there were 3 non-combat fatalities, and a huge number of Iraqis killed of course. Think Defence looks at the Royal Navy's efforts to replace it's current escort fleet with Type 45 and FSC.

Flight's DEW Line blog asks how serious the US are about airships and includes a recent USN presentation on the subject. Former Defence Secretary Malcolm Rifkind writes in the Telegraph that a defence review must reflect policy not budgets, i hope he tells that to his mate the shadow chancellor.

The BBC are claiming the 1994 Mull of Kintyre Chinook crash, that claimed 29 lives, may have been caused by software faults after getting hold of a document that spoke of problems with the engine control on the Mark 2 Chinook.

Nimrod crash report damns MOD

An independant report into the Nimrod crash in Afghanistan in 2006 that claimed the lives of 14 service personnel has blamed cost-cutting by the MOD which contributed to a culture that sacrificed safety. Charles Haddon-Cave's report blasted the MOD, BAE Systems and QinetiQ for the poor job it made in conducting a safety review into the Nimrod MR2. Haddon-Cave blamed an "organisational trauma" in the MOD as a result of the 1998 Strategic Defence Review which caused cost and not safety to be the top priority.

Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth has admitted the MOD failed and apologied to the families of those who died when XV230 crashed. Meanwhile the head of QinetiQ has resigned though it is claimed to be unrelated to the Nimrod report. QinetiQ were blamed in the report for failing to check BAE Systems work on the Nimrod and their claims as to the aircraft's safety.

XV230 caught fire while being inflight-refuelled when leaking fuel came into contact with a hot air pipe. A safety review conducted a year before the crash was said to be riddled with errors and did not identify design flaws which led to the accident.

Engine fire on Ark Royal

HMS Ark Royal, on trials following a £12 million refit, has suffered a minor engine fire it has been reported within hours of beginning the post-refit trials. The RN say there was no damage (surely there has to have been some damage to something no matter how minor!) and no injuries. The post-refit trials are to iron out any teething-problems a spokesman added.

Endurance to return to UK as deck cargo

HMS Endurance, which came a cropper off Chile last December and suffered a flooded engine room, will be returned to the UK as deck cargo aboard Dockwise's newly converted ship Target. The 8000nm journey is expected to take a month, Endurance should be back in the UK by the end of March. The damage to Endurance's engines meant it could not make the journey back to Portsmouth on it's own. Target, Dockwise say, is a semi-submersible heavy left vessel.


Likely something like this will be used

UK and French SSBNs collide in Atlantic

The MOD are staying quiet about it but the French are admitting one of their ballistic-missile submarines, Le Triomphant, has struck another submarine, said to be the lead class of the Royal Navy's Vanguard class of ballistic-missile submarines! Le Triomphant's sonar dome was destroyed in the incident, damage to Vanguard is unknown though both submarines were able to make it back to dock and there was no radiation release.



The incident occurred in "heavy seas" (perhaps the background noise masked the other boat from the passive sensors?) off the French Atlantic coast on the night of February 3rd and 4th in heavy seas. The French have said there were no injuries. The systems on both boats aimed at avoiding such an incident seem to have failed on both boats or maybe rather the stealth of both boats was so good they couldn't be detected by passive sonar.

Endurance engine room flooded

HMS Endurance has suffered an engine flood whilst off the coast of Chile and has been left without main power or propulsion. The flooding has been stopped though and the ship is currently anchored in the Strait of Magellan. The Chilean Navy is assisting including evacuating a civilian film crew. The cause of the flooding is currently being investigated.