LONDON - While still heavily committed to operations around the world, Britain's Royal Air Force is quietly undergoing changes aimed at sharpening its teeth while making it leaner and more cost effective. Click on Read More for full story.
Adam Ingram, the armed forces minister, announced June 16 that RAF Headquarters Personnel and Training Command (HQ PTC) would be co-located with RAF HQ Strike Command at High Wycombe outside London. HQ PTC currently is based in Gloucestershire, western England, and the combined HQ is expected to result in job cuts of some 1,000 military and civilian personnel. The RAF already is committed to reducing its workforce from 49,000 to 41,000.
"I have to make the right decisions for defense as a whole," Ingram told the press. "These changes will release resources from headquarters functions, so that we can invest more of the increasing defense budget into our front-line capabilities."
The move comes amid other challenges, such as a report by the National Audit Office ñ a spending watchdog ñ which said that "overstretch" issues are causing RAF fast-jet pilots to lose an hour of flight training a month, down to 16.5 hours.
Ongoing operations
This front-line investment will be needed by a force still very much engaged in operations around the world. Although the British Army gets much of the limelight in the media regarding United Kingdom operations in Iraq, the RAF is just as busy. Three days after Ingram's announcement, British Tornado GR4 bombers, along with U.S. Marine Corps and Air Force aircraft, struck a suspected insurgent hideout near the Iraq-Syrian border as part of a three-day anti-insurgency effort called Operation Spear.
The Tornados, which also can carry the Reconnaissance Airborne Pod Tornado (RAPTOR), are part of a much larger force of aircraft including C-130 transports, Nimrod MR2 and R1 reconnaissance and electronic intelligence airplanes and VC-10 and Tristar tankers, which also refuel USMC and U.S. Navy aircraft. All are participating in Operation Telic, the codename for British operations in Iraq.
To the northeast, RAF Harrier GR7 close air support jets are joined with Canberra PR9 imagery intelligence aircraft supporting coalition efforts in Afghanistan. The GR7s are very active, with an RAF spokesman noting that "the Harriers have been involved in using their munitions during operations."
The rest of the fleet also is heavily tasked. British commitments to the Falklands Islands in the south Atlantic continue and RAF helicopters still provide airlift in Northern Ireland.
"The whole fleet is always in demand," the spokesman said. "The Airborne Early Warning fleet continue to provide coverage, while the four C-17 Globemaster freighters are tasked to the absolute maximum. The transport fleet has also been shifting stuff around doing tsunami relief."
Such missions may continue when the RAF deploys to Sudan to help humanitarian efforts, he said.
"We are soon to send a detachment of people out to Darfur in Sudan, along with C-130s and C-17s under a NATO banner."
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