Big cuts planned for the RAF

Steyr

From The Sunday Times - November 15, 2009

RAF plans huge cuts in planes and bases

Air Force chiefs are preparing to cut 10,000 staff — a quarter of their manpower — and close up to five large air bases.

The plans will reduce the RAF’s strength to 31,000 personnel over the next five years, little more than half the level during the recent Iraq conflict and seriously diminishing its capability of fighting another conventional war.

It also intends to retire the majority of its Harrier and Tornado jets early, leaving it with about 80 fewer aircraft by 2025. The cuts are part of a package prepared for the 2010 annual spending round.

They are designed to pre-empt the savage cuts expected as part of the strategic defence review promised by whichever party wins power in next year’s general election.

A senior RAF officer said the plans were designed to save “significant amounts of money, measured in billions of pounds a year” rather than having them forced on the service by the review.

The RAF has 19 flying bases in the UK, but the reduction in aircraft means up to five are expected to be closed and sold over the next decade.

The bases most at risk include RAF Cottesmore in Rutland and RAF Wittering in Cambridgeshire, both of which will close when the Harrier fleet is retired.

One of either RAF Marham in Norfolk or RAF Lossiemouth in Morayshire is under threat because of planned cuts to joint strike fighter numbers. So, too, is RAF Kinloss in Morayshire, with the new Nimrod MRA4 expected to move to RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire.

One plan under consideration would see all RAF fast jet training moving to RAF Valley in Anglesey, leading to the possible closure of RAF Linton-on-Ouse and RAF Leeming, both in North Yorkshire.

Other proposals would see all the RAF’s Merlin helicopters move from RAF Benson in Oxfordshire to a joint RAF-

Royal Navy station at what is currently Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose in Cornwall.

The proposals were ordered by Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton, the new chief of the air staff, and the air force board ahead of the 2010 spending round.

It comes with the RAF ordered to find £200m in cuts to relieve pressure on the defence budget and ensure all possible available resources are diverted to Afghanistan.

Short-term cuts will see reductions in the RAF’s flying schedule, the grounding of Nimrod MR2 aircraft and Puma helicopters until April, and the mothballing of four of its seven Boeing E-3D Sentry Awacs airborne warning aircraft.

Senior RAF officers believe that whichever party wins the general election it will have to make cuts to defence because of the economic situation.

The Ministry of Defence said: “These are challenging times and, like all government departments, we routinely review spending to ensure that best use is made of the defence budget.”

concussion

That's pretty serious...more like a cull.

Fratton Fred

I was thinking about this last night.

the UK has ordered a total of 232 typhoons, it also has an interest in about 50 of the Joint Strike Fighter for the two new carriers.

That is 280 aircraft in total, plus whatever is kept over from the existing harrier and tornado fleets.

When the **** is the UK going to need to call on all these aircraft? OK, supposing you can keep 50% airborn at any one time, that is still 140 aircraft. If the UK ever gets attacked or needs to deploy the services of 140 aircraft, i would have thought ICBM's would have been buzzing over our heads for some time.

I reckon the two new carriers and the new aircraft are going to cost over £20Bn, this seems like an abhorrant amount of money to be spending when what the Military really needs, is better equipment to the poor pongos on the front line.

Am I right or barking mad?

troubleshooter

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I was thinking about this last night.

the UK has ordered a total of 232 typhoons, it also has an interest in about 50 of the Joint Strike Fighter for the two new carriers.

That is 280 aircraft in total, plus whatever is kept over from the existing harrier and tornado fleets.

When the **** is the UK going to need to call on all these aircraft? OK, supposing you can keep 50% airborn at any one time, that is still 140 aircraft. If the UK ever gets attacked or needs to deploy the services of 140 aircraft, i would have thought ICBM's would have been buzzing over our heads for some time.

I reckon the two new carriers and the new aircraft are going to cost over £20Bn, this seems like an abhorrant amount of money to be spending when what the Military really needs, is better equipment to the poor pongos on the front line.

Am I right or barking mad?

True, daft to have all these fighters and not enough helicopters.

Morpheus

AND the grounding of Pumas!! Insanity...

Tarzan007

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I was thinking about this last night.

the UK has ordered a total of 232 typhoons, it also has an interest in about 50 of the Joint Strike Fighter for the two new carriers.

That is 280 aircraft in total, plus whatever is kept over from the existing harrier and tornado fleets.

When the **** is the UK going to need to call on all these aircraft? OK, supposing you can keep 50% airborn at any one time, that is still 140 aircraft. If the UK ever gets attacked or needs to deploy the services of 140 aircraft, i would have thought ICBM's would have been buzzing over our heads for some time.

I reckon the two new carriers and the new aircraft are going to cost over £20Bn, this seems like an abhorrant amount of money to be spending when what the Military really needs, is better equipment to the poor pongos on the front line.

Am I right or barking mad?

Well since Britian has 280 fighter planes and since Ireland has about 1/12th the population of Britain, then 280/12 = 23.3. So we shoud have 23 fighter aircraft

But then again we dont have a proper health service either !!!!

Tarzan007

Morphéus wrote: »

AND the grounding of Pumas!! Insanity...

Why are they grounded ?

Morpheus

dont know, it was mentioned in an earlier post above that the nimrods and pumas are grounded until april!

Steyr

Morphéus wrote: »

dont know, it was mentioned in an earlier post above that the nimrods and pumas are grounded until april!

The RAF Puma HC1's are not grounded, they have been very busy as of late, and are frequently down in SPTA doing their confined landing drills, also the Nimrod fleet is still very much active especially in their upgrading at RAF Warton, the only Nimrods that are not flying are the ones that are being upgraded at RAF Warton and the ones that have not yet had their new safety features added in the wake of the Nimrod crash back in 2006.

Steyr

Fratton Fred wrote: »

That is 280 aircraft in total, plus whatever is kept over from the existing harrier and tornado fleets.

The Tornado F3 Fleet is already on the way out they are actively being retired.

Fratton Fred

Steyr wrote: »

The Tornado F3 Fleet is already on the way out they are actively being retired.

That makes me feel old.

When my cousin passed out from RAF Halton, he was based at Leuchars maintaining Phantoms. He showed me his workshop one Sunday and pointed to a shiney new part of the hanger, which has a new coat of paint, new tools, new benches and muttered something about those ****ing primadonnas over there are getting Tornados!

Its mad to think they are now "Old".

piby

Steyr wrote: »

The plans will reduce the RAF’s strength to 31,000 personnel over the next five years, little more than half the level during the recent Iraq conflict and seriously diminishing its capability of fighting another conventional war.

That's the whole point though really isn't it? Conventional wars like those of the twentieth century are unlikely to seen again and we have to look at what role the RAF plays in modern conflict. Fast jets are becoming less popular in A'stan because of the civilian destruction they cause and so Apaches are preffered, which naturally are part of the BA Air Corps. To be honest I think it's better to look at the RAF as ways to save money, the army could do with keeping, if not enlarging, it's budget.

OS119

the numbers of fast jets aren't actually as 'large' as the headline suggests - roughly 25 - 30% of a fleet will be lost to attrition over a 30 year service life but the 'replacements' are bought up front and stashed in hangers, so the headline number is inflated - and by the time you take the OCU and all the training units out of the figure the number available drops down considerably.

nobody thinks the number of F-35's is enough to be able to have 40-odd airframes on a QE2 CVF in 2035 - and thats only half way through its service life. Tornado GR4 will be out of service by 2025, and probably 5 years before that because its proving quite hard work to keep its availability up, Harrier GR9 will be away long before that...

the Tornado F3's in the Falklands - just been replaced by Typhoon, much to the chagrin of our Argentine friends - were cut up on MPA as soon as the Typhoons went operational. no sentimentality there...

Dacian

Fratton Fred wrote: »

the UK has ordered a total of 232 typhoons, it also has an interest in about 50 of the Joint Strike Fighter for the two new carriers.

That is 280 aircraft in total, plus whatever is kept over from the existing harrier and tornado fleets

I reckon the two new carriers and the new aircraft are going to cost over £20Bn, this seems like an abhorrant amount of money to be spending.........
Am I right or barking mad?

I must agree. While I love the idea of the UK getting new carriers they are hugely expensive at a time when they want to reduce military spending.

There was an article in Combat Aircraft about 6-7 months ago talking about this. Then the worry was that the RAF fighter squadrons were being reduced from the 20 of 1995 and 11 in 2008 down to 7 in 2010. The writer commented that having enough Tyhoons for UK air defense could be a problem as the RAF is strained with Iraq/Afghanistan. While individual aircraft may be more capable there is a point where you need a minimum number of actual aircraft to perform all roles simultaneously.

He made the point that the 2 new carriers and their proposed fleet of JSF was a white elephant. The biggest cost was the fighters not the 2 carriers. While the UK govt may talk about the 'expeditionary ability' of the proposed carrier strike force the writer argued that any future operation that did not have land basing rights and/or overfly rights is probably an operation that the UK shouldn't really get involved with. Even Iraq and Afghanistan, while not universally popular/accepted in World opinion had 'friendly' airfields nearby.

Wiki says thh carrier will cost STG£4Bn, think the fighters will total STG£20Bn.

johnny_doyle

Fratton Fred wrote: »

That makes me feel old.

When my cousin passed out from RAF Halton, he was based at Leuchars maintaining Phantoms. He showed me his workshop one Sunday and pointed to a shiney new part of the hanger, which has a new coat of paint, new tools, new benches and muttered something about those ****ing primadonnas over there are getting Tornados!

Its mad to think they are now "Old".

you're feeling old - my old man used to work on the Vulcans at RAF Waddington and later the Lightnings when we were in Singapore. I have to put up with the ooh aaghing about the last Vulcan at air shows when they used to be common as muck flying over our house ;-)

near me, RAF Lyneham is slated for closure very soon. Was mooted to be taken over by the BA but that looks like it's not gonna happen. Very sad state of affairs.

Picked up a copy of the RAF Annual Review booklet RAF 2010 this weekend. No mention of cuts.... surprisingly. One of those Phantoms is pictured - now a Gate Guardian at Mount Pleasant on the Falklands having been replaced by those Tornado F3's.