Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160
- 179)
WEDNESDAY 20 OCTOBER 2004
AIR CHIEF
MARSHAL SIR
JOCK STIRRUP
KCB AFC ADC
Q160 Chairman: This Committee, when
we produced our Report on the Strategic Defence Review, said we
would undertake a very regular review of the Carrier programme.
I understand there are delays in the Joint Strike Fighter programme,
and I understand there may well be delays in the Carrier programme.
A delicate question: the RAF is famed for its advanced planning,
can you tell us if the Joint Strike Fighter can take off from
an Invincible class aircraft carrier? I am thinking of the unthinkable,
or very thinkable. I will not be around at the time but it would
be interesting to know this. Should there be delays in the Carrier
programme and should the Joint Strike Fighter programme be successful,
I would be dismayed in my retirement home—if I am around
at the time in a retirement home—to think we had these wonderful
Joint Strike Fighters but with nowhere to go. So at some stage
I presume you would be thinking about whether it might be necessary
to deploy Joint Strike Fighters on Invincible class, assuming
they will be around in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and deployed albeit
in substantially lower numbers than would be available. What I
am asking is, at what stage are you going to start to panic about
whether you are going to be able to put these aircraft on top
of anything which moves?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
The first thing I would say, Chairman, is that we do have a senior
responsible officer for the Carrier-Strike programme which looks
at all the elements of that capability, not just the Carrier but
the aircraft as well and all the other bits and pieces which go
into it, to ensure that things are developed coherently and not
in stovepipes. As to the specific question of whether one could
operate JSF off the Invincible class, we simply do not know yet
because we do not know enough about JSF. It is not just an issue
of the aircraft performance, the resilience one needs in the deck,
the space one needs and so on, but a question of not just can
you take the aeroplane off and land it but can you actually operate
it, can you put on the Carrier all the systems one would need
to sustain and maintain that striking force of aircraft We simply
do not know enough yet to be able to answer such a question.
Q161 Chairman: But you have the capacity
to find answers in due course?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
We do.
Q162 Chairman: Should you find by
2010 the programme has slipped to such a level, you have the—
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
We will in due course have the capacity to answer the question.
Q163 Chairman: We have been lobbying,
as has the Ministry of Defence and the Embassy, over the absurd
and appalling ITAR Waiver. Some announcements were made recently
that there is some hope the US is likely to be more forthcoming
in transmitting information on an unclassified basis which will
be helpful to us. It seems to me truly absurd for a country like
the United Kingdom, which has proved itself to be by far and away
the most loyal ally to the United States, to be in the position
of almost grovelling to the United States and saying, "Please
will you give us the information we require." Do you have
any opinion as to whether these recent announcements might result
in the aviation industry and the military in the United States
providing the UK manufacturers and the Royal Air Force with sufficient
information to allow you and British Aerospace to do the job which
you are both empowered to do? Or do you feel, as I suspect, the
recent announcements in the US are in principle and may not actually
deliver decisions within the US bureaucracy, who may not feel
themselves obligated to implement a principle rather than an instruction?
If you cannot answer at this stage, Sir Jock, perhaps you will
send the Committee a letter which will enlighten us as to how
you interpret the developments in the United States?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
In keeping with the principle of effects-based operations, let
me start off by outlining the effect I would want to see from
an RAF perspective, and I think it is important to keep that in
mind because there may be more than one way of achieving that
effect. The effect I want to see is an ability to adapt the aircraft
quickly and affordably when we need to, because as I said earlier
we cannot foresee every eventuality. We have to be able to adapt
to an unknown future. If the system of adapting, modifying, the
aircraft is so cumbersome that we cannot do it in operational
timescales, then that will be a serious incumbence. Whether we
will have such a system in place, I do not know, what I do believe
is that we do not yet have anything like a credible route map
for achieving that, and so that area requires a great deal of
work and effort.
Q164 Chairman: Thank you. Perhaps
you can drop us a note in due course. It is not often in this
Committee we land a killer punch but with the spectre of three
people facing us and a triple whammy the question I am going to
ask must be the most predictable question this Committee could
possible ask in the light of our session with the Secretary of
State, the Chief of Defence Staff and Kevin Tebbit. The proposed
combined Tornado GR4, Typhoon, Harrier, JSF active fleets could
total some 350 aircraft excluding attrition purchases You have
decided to reduce the number of fast jet crews to 225. Bearing
in mind the normal crew to aircraft manning ratio varies from
1.1 to 1.5:1, can you explain how this number of fast jets will
actually be manned, unless we have reached the age of UAVs and
we have the pilots sitting wherever they may be deployed at home?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
As I explained in the answer to your previous question, we construct
our total fleet size from the requirement to provide flying hours
to train our air crew. The deployable force we envisage at the
moment requires the number of combat raid pilots on frontline
squadrons which were set out in the White Paper. We will need
a fleet to support those numbers, to generate the necessary flying
hours for those frontline crews plus of course the operational
conversion units, plus of course the operational evaluation units,
and we will need a fleet which will sustain that size over the
life of the various air frame types. What that final number will
be, we have not yet decided. We talked about Tranche 3 of Typhoons
earlier. With regard to the number of pilots, if we decide that
our overall deployable force, and therefore our total fleet size,
should be something different from the number we first thought
of, then we would have to vary the number of air crew we plan
to have. I do not say that will happen, I do not say it will not
happen, what I do say is that we have to remember the procurement
of these aircraft, be they Typhoons, be they JSF, typically cover
anything upwards of a 15-year period, so we are looking a very
long way into the future. For JSF, for example, we are probably
looking to close to 2030 before final deliveries might be made,
depending on the total fleet size one buys. So I think it is wrong
to ascribe a greater degree of precision to numbers which cover
such a long period of time than they deserve.
Q165 Chairman: How long will it take
to train a crew to fly a Joint Strike Fighter or a Typhoon?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
From scratch, presumably?
Q166 Chairman: Yes.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
Currently about three years to get on to an operational squadron,
combat ready, although we are looking very closely at our training
machine, our training pipeline, and we have every intention of
reducing that period of time.
Q167 Chairman: Are you confident
you will be able to recruit, train and retain enough fast jet
pilots to fill this reduced number of air crews, bearing in mind
you have not been totally successful in attracting fast jet pilots
bearing in mind the National Audit Office Report in 2000? It is
not too encouraging that you can just whistle and out come men
and women who can fly Typhoons or Joint Strike Fighters.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
We have not typically had a problem recruiting people. We have
from time to time had a problem retaining them. There are only
a certain number of people one can push in at the front end of
the pipeline at any one time. If retention becomes dramatically
worse over a short period of time, that will of course affect
the frontline air crew strength quite quickly. So the real key
to controlling the availability of air crew on the front line
is actually retention rather than recruiting. I am not saying
recruiting is not important, it is critical and we pay a great
deal of attention to it, but typically we are usually pretty successful
in that area. Where we have a much more variable record is in
retention.
Q168 Chairman: So the pilot for a
Joint Strike Fighter has not been born yet?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
For some of them, that is undoubtedly true, given the length of
time we maintain these aircraft in service.
Q169 Mr Viggers: Reference has been
made to Joint Strike Fighter and its weight problem, one aspect
of weight of course is payload and the other one is range. It
would be jejeune of me to ask you exactly what the range of the
Joint Strike Fighter is going to be but I would like to ask a
general question about the strategic use. Do you envisage its
use will be comparable to that of a Harrier? Do you envisage in
terms of range and payload it will be similar to the Harrier or
rather different?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
I envisage it having a wider coverage of effect than the Harrier
from the outset. How that will develop over the years in which
it is in service I cannot foresee. There are all sorts of things
one can do to a basic platform to change the nature and/or scale
of its capabilities. For example, if one decided one wanted an
aircraft to go a lot further than one had originally envisaged,
there are a number of approaches to this. One can use in-flight
refuelling, as we do now. One can fit con-formal tanks which extend
the range of the aircraft dramatically. Technology can provide
improved weapon effects which enable one to reduce the weapon
load and, therefore, increase the range. Similarly, there are
technologies which can be fed in on a sensor weapon and information-handling
side which can vary the capability of the platform, so all I can
really talk about is what we envisage in the early years of JSF's
service life. Beyond that, we would be speculating, but initially
certainly a greater coverage of effect than we currently get from
the Harrier.
Q170 Mr Cran: On to the Future Strategic
Tanker Aircraft, the word on the street is that the present VC10s
and Tristars are going to have their service lives extended by
two years. Can you tell us anything about that?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
Air-to-air refuelling is a critical capability for us and so we
have to ensure that we maintain sufficient air-to-air refuelling
resource to cover the transition period to whatever comes next.
Because there is some uncertainty about the date of what comes
next because we do not yet have any contract for anything, we
have to ensure we retain the flexibility to cover that period.
Q171 Mr Cran: So it may be two years,
it may be less or it may even be more?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
It depends what comes out of the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft
programme.
Q172 Mr Cran: The other question
I am going to ask, you could quite easily deflect to the Defence
Procurement Agency, I guess, but I hope you can tell us what you
can about the arrangement. Do you know anything about the contract
negotiations and how they are going? You mentioned the contract,
so do you have any expectation of when the contract might be signed?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
I cannot answer anything about contract negotiations and, not
wishing to put words in their mouths, I dare say neither would
the Defence Procurement Agency. All I would say from my perspective
is that I would like to see a resolution as soon as possible because
this is a critical area for us.
Q173 Mr Cran: But it is true to say
that we will have a capability until this aircraft comes to support
any operations that might come along?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
On our current plans, yes, but of course I do not know what the
outcome from the negotiations will be and, therefore, what the
in-service date will be of whatever comes next.
Q174 Mr Cran: But I guess you are
pressurising as much as you can to get those who should be doing
it to get on with it?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
I am, but equally I am confident that they are getting on with
it as fast as they possibly can.
Q175 Mr Cran: Is it still likely
to be a PFI arrangement? Can you tell us that?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
I think we have to await the outcome of the contract negotiations.
That is still not clear.
Q176 Mr Cran: Do you have any sense
of what the timescale might be so that we can keep a watch?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
I could not say. What I will say is that I hope it is resolved
quickly, so from my perspective we all need to be watching right
now.
Q177 Mr Cran: And just so that I
know what that word "quickly" means, taking my cue from
my colleague, what does "quickly" mean in your terminology?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
A year ago.
Q178 Mr Cran: But since it was not
a year ago?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
Absolutely as soon as possible. That is what I am looking for,
but of course we have to have the right deal. We all understand
that. We all understand that we have got to wait for the negotiations
to be concluded, but from an operational perspective we need to
get something under way as soon as we possibly can. Everybody
understands that. The team that is negotiating understand that
and they are working as quickly as they can and I am confident
of that.
Mr Cran: I am not getting much more out
of you, Air Chief Marshal!
Chairman: You are doing pretty well,
I thought!
Q179 Mr Cran: Is there a point beyond
which the VC10s and the Tristar tankers just will not be able
to do the job? I would just like to attack it from that end so
we know where we are.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
There is not at the moment a cliff edge. I cannot say that beyond
a certain date those VC10s will be unable to fly, but they become
progressively more difficult and more expensive to maintain, the
availability reduces over time and so our operational capability
in terms of air-to-air refuelling declines over time.
Mr Cran: We will watch this space.
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