What does the UK Audit Agency think of their new EADS air tanker

[Kei Lau]

An interesting read.

UK_DailyMail

The UK National Audit Office (NAO) seems to share some concern of the US Congressional GAO. Unfortunately, it is too late to change course for UK. It will be interesting to find out how much more will it take to retrofit counter measure equipments.

As expected, the UK MoD spokesman said that it was a good deal.

[Jay Chladek]

Unless the systems are classified, I don't recall any of the USAF tanker fleet carrying such countermeasures either. A tanker NEVER gets close enough to anti-air assets to warrant carrying IR jammers. And if they do fly over a war zone, air superiority is likely to have already been achieved and MANPADs are such short range weapons that their use would be relatively rare and only outside the gate of an airbase. Of course, if the tanker bases are nowhere near the warzone, then it is even less likely for a tanker to encounter one.

As such, while I understand the concerns, I don't think they really are concerns as a tanker is not likely to be refuelling aircraft OVER extremely hostile territories (even if it is tanking up Legacy Hornets). As for troop deployment, if the landing zone is not fully secured, then a tactical transport like a C-130 is going to be used, NOT a commercial airliner based tanker transport such as an A-330 or even a KC-10.

Edited March 30, 2010 by Jay Chladek

[dpogson]

The daily mail is known as a scaremongering right wing hate mag. It just wants to stick the boot into labour.

There is a headline generator called the dailymailomatic.

[ventura_kelley]

An interesting read.

UK_DailyMail

The UK National Audit Office (NAO) seems to share some concern of the US Congressional GAO. Unfortunately, it is too late to change course for UK. It will be interesting to find out how much more will it take to retrofit counter measure equipments.

As expected, the UK MoD spokesman said that it was a good deal.

ARMOR? They're saying their air-to-air refueling tankers needs ARMOR and missile defence systems? SERIOUSLY?

Reading that Daily Mail article leaves me wondering WTH kinda missions are they expecting these things to fly?

Like this:

????

Can you picture that? An A330 down in the dirt, jinking hard while following terrain, dragging three fully loaded Eurofighters with the baskets and on their way to bomb the Taliban?

If you're going to arm and armor the tanker, you might as well delete the fuel tanks from the fighters all together, increasing their weapons loads massively, and leave the tanker hooked up to the fighters permanently. They could all four take off, fly the mission, and land together. /sarcasm

Or if you want a huge fuel load, armor, and armament, you could just use one of these instead.

[Sean Bratton]

Important to keep in mind that the RAF use their tankers as pax carriers and as such routinely fly them into fun spots like Afghanistan and Iraq. As a result their Tristars (one of the fleets which the A330 is supposed to replace) are fitted with DAS. Other air force's SOP's may vary.

Cheers,

Sean

[ventura_kelley]

Here's what the NAO report actually said:

There remain a number of issues for the Department to address. The original FSTA

requirement did not envisage the aircraft flying directly into high-threat environments

such as Afghanistan. When the need for possible additional platform protection

measures became apparent, the Department sensibly did not alter its requirement

for fear of prejudicing the ongoing commercial negotiations.

Having established that

these modifications are likely to cost several hundred million pounds,

the Department

is considering the costs and technical requirements

in the light of other options

.

If

the

Department chooses to fit these modifications, it will take a number of years to do so.

http://www.nao.org.uk/idoc.ashx?docId=aff8...&version=-1

So, given that the original requirement for this tanker was written back in 1999, they didn't envision flying this thing into a combat zone.

And now that the war on terror is happening "the Department is considering the costs and technical requirements in the light of other options".

And even though the Daily Mail seems to imply that they MUST fit those tankers with "hundreds of millions of pounds" of additional equipment, the report actually says no such thing. It simply says that they're evaluating their options.

[ventura_kelley]

Important to keep in mind that the RAF use their tankers as pax carriers and as such routinely fly them into fun spots like Afghanistan and Iraq. As a result their Tristars (one of the fleets which the A330 is supposed to replace) are fitted with DAS. Other air force's SOP's may vary.

Cheers,

Sean

Do our 135's have armor and missile defence systems?

I find instances of them flying into Afghanistan, but it seems they're flying into well established bases and they're only stop & go's. I can't find anything that says we station our 135's in harms way.

So why are they implying that the UK would?

And why are they shocked that a project with a 12 year lead time would need changes to keep up with the current global situation? Do they really think the people that wrote the requirement back in 1999 should have envisioned 9/11 and the resultant mess we all wound up in since?

If they could have envisioned 9/11 and the war on terror, why wouldn't they have done something to stop it, instead of rewriting a tanker requirement with additional armor and armament?

It just seems the expectations of the people writing this article and criticizing their tanker program are extremely unreasonable.

[Sean Bratton]

That's a lot of red.

[4scourge7]

Like Sean said, Britain can no longer afford one-trick-ponies.

Only the cockpit and presumeably some vitals are being armoured. `Armour` is a wide ranging term not necessarily meaning combat. Concorde`s fuel tanks were `armoured` post Air-France crash.

And if you`re regularly flying 150 troops into Afghanistan at a time, then I think a defensive system of some sort is fair enough. Again, this isn`t offensive weaponry, but defensive systems already seen on transport aircraft.

http://www.raf.mod.uk/equipment/tristar.cfm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_TriStar_(RAF)

Cheers, Ian

[Kei Lau]

The daily mail is known as a scaremongering right wing hate mag. It just wants to stick the boot into labour.

There is a headline generator called the dailymailomatic.

Don't kill the messager. The Daily Mail just reported the National Audit Office (NAO) finding.

You will find the same news item in The Guardian or The Daily Telegraph as well as other major UK news outlets. It will take a bit longer for the US newspaper to pick it up.

[Kei Lau]

Do our 135's have armor and missile defence systems?

It just seems the expectations of the people writing this article and criticizing their tanker program are extremely unreasonable.

The terrorist did not have shoulder fired SAM when they build the KC-135, but they do now.

It is unthinkable in today's warfare not to protect the aircrew in a tanker against those weapons.

I believe that the auditors at UK NAO knows what they are talking about in the government report.

[pigsty]

Don't kill the messager. The Daily Mail just reported the National Audit Office (NAO) finding.

You will find the same news item in The Guardian or The Daily Telegraph as well as other major UK news outlets. It will take a bit longer for the US newspaper to pick it up.

The Daily Mail will quote selectively from the report in order to support its pre-determined conclusion, as will the rest. I can guarantee that its report and the Guardian's will be so different that you'll wonder if they were reading the same report. If you want the actual position, read the NAO report and nothing else. And if you read today's date in the Mail, check your calendar.

[Oroka]

Lasers, it needs lasers. Blue ones, to combat the red ones that the bad guys use.

[Vesper]

And where do you propose we get these lasers? Them kind of sharks are endangered y'know

Ves

[Kei Lau]

The Daily Mail will quote selectively from the report in order to support its pre-determined conclusion, as will the rest. I can guarantee that its report and the Guardian's will be so different that you'll wonder if they were reading the same report.

I read the reports in The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph too. All three news are similar and factual when compared to the NAO report. I don't know the reputation of Daily Mail in UK. On this particular news item, they reported and did not offer their own commentary.

If you want the actual position, read the NAO report and nothing else. And if you read today's date in the Mail, check your calendar.

Here is the NAO section. Judge yourself.

The Department is planning for the introduction of FSTA but risks remain

3.2 Since the contract was signed in March 2008, the FSTA project has progressed

well, with AirTanker meeting all contractual milestones to date. This achievement

highlights one benefit of PFI projects, whereby industrial partners do not receive

payment until contract delivery, so are therefore incentivised to deliver the stages of

the contract as agreed. In our previous work on the Introduction of the Apache Attack

Helicopter12, we highlighted the importance of managing all of the Defence Lines of

Development13 effectively when introducing new equipment capabilities. Learning

from these past experiences, the Department has put in place robust organisational

arrangements to manage the transition from the existing fl eets to FSTA.

FSTA will require substantial modifications to fly into high-threat environments

3.3 The original FSTA requirement did not envisage the aircraft flying directly into

high-threat environments such as Afghanistan. However,

this requirement changed

during the procurement phase and the Department’s 2006 Concept of Use document

for FSTA established the need for the aircraft to be fitted with a range of platform

protection measures, such as flight deck armour and vulnerable point protection, to fly

into high-threat environments

. There was no approved funding for this requirement at

the time it was produced. The Department did not establish a formal requirement for all

large aircraft to be fitted with the full Theatre Entry Standard equipment, including fuel

tank inerting, until 2008.

It seems to me that the RAF covered up a realistic military requirement for the purpose of getting the Tanker. Now, it is going to cost the UK tax payer a lot more to make the tanker combat suitable. Can you imagine a tanker with NO "fuel tank inerting" flying over a combat zone?

Edited March 31, 2010 by Kei Lau

[caiotfjr]

And where do you propose we get these lasers? Them kind of sharks are endangered y'know

Ves

We can always get ill tempered seabasses...UAHAHAHA!!!!

[ventura_kelley]

It seems to me that the RAF covered up a realistic military requirement for the purpose of getting the Tanker. Now, it is going to cost the UK tax payer a lot more to make the tanker combat suitable. Can you imagine a tanker with NO "fuel tank inerting" flying over a combat zone?

Actually that's not what the report says.

From above:

When the need for possible additional platform protection

measures became apparent, the Department sensibly did not alter its requirement

for fear of prejudicing the ongoing commercial negotiations. Having established that

these modifications are likely to cost several hundred million pounds, the Department

is considering the costs and technical requirements in the light of other options. If the

Department chooses to fit these modifications, it will take a number of years to do so.

http://www.nao.org.uk/idoc.ashx?docId=aff8...&version=-1

Basically, they're saying the department was right not to add the capabilities the Daily Mail is whining about to this contract.

Why didn't the Daily Mail mention that the auditors approved of the MoD's decision NOT to add those capabilities...Cause it kinda shoots a huge hole in the premise of their article?

[Kei Lau]

Actually that's not what the report says.

From above:

When the need for possible additional platform protection

measures became apparent, the Department sensibly did not alter its requirement

for fear of prejudicing the ongoing commercial negotiations. Having established that

these modifications are likely to cost several hundred million pounds, the Department

is considering the costs and technical requirements in the light of other options. If the

Department chooses to fit these modifications, it will take a number of years to do so.

http://www.nao.org.uk/idoc.ashx?docId=aff8...&version=-1

Basically, they're saying the department was right not to add the capabilities the Daily Mail is whining about to this contract.

Why didn't the Daily Mail mention that the auditors approved of the MoD's decision NOT to add those capabilities...Cause it kinda shoots a huge hole in the premise of their article?

What does this direct quote from the NAO report mean?

The Department is planning for the introduction of FSTA but risks remain...............

FSTA will require substantial modifications to fly into high-threat environments

It does not sound like an approval of the decision by auditors to me. The NAO critism was on the fact that UK MoD was aware of the defensive requirements coming in 2006, chose to ignor it and signed the contract ahead of the requirements' 2008 official date. They now ended up with a bunch of warplanes that are unsafe to fly according to their rules and will end up forced to retrofit at a much higher cost.

Edited April 1, 2010 by Kei Lau

[Mark M.]

And where do you propose we get these lasers? Them kind of sharks are endangered y'know :wub:

Ves :)

"You buy 'em off frikkin' sharks, man! Throw me a frikkin' bone!"

[Kei Lau]

Unless the systems are classified, I don't recall any of the USAF tanker fleet carrying such countermeasures either. A tanker NEVER gets close enough to anti-air assets to warrant carrying IR jammers. And if they do fly over a war zone, air superiority is likely to have already been achieved and MANPADs are such short range weapons that their use would be relatively rare and only outside the gate of an airbase. Of course, if the tanker bases are nowhere near the warzone, then it is even less likely for a tanker to encounter one.

As such, while I understand the concerns, I don't think they really are concerns as a tanker is not likely to be refuelling aircraft OVER extremely hostile territories (even if it is tanking up Legacy Hornets). As for troop deployment, if the landing zone is not fully secured, then a tactical transport like a C-130 is going to be used, NOT a commercial airliner based tanker transport such as an A-330 or even a KC-10.

This is an older report on the electronic countermeasure system. It is a requirement emergied in the early 1990 for all transport/tanker type warplanes against infrared homing ("heat seeking") man-portable SAM missiles. Its existance is not classified and pretty common knowledge in the aerospace industry. Northrop Grumman is the industry leader in such system and built all of those on the Boeing airplanes, including C-17 and B-40C. It would not be a surprise to see the same system on the KC-X tanker, no matter it is Boeing or EADS design.

Other requirements include armour for the aircrew and fuel tank inerting. These are all standard defensive measures, not offensive weapons.

Edited April 1, 2010 by Kei Lau