air Power
inflight fire on 2 September 2006 led to the type’s early withdrawal, and to the introduction of new ISR aircraft types, offering capabilities more finely tuned to the type of operations being flown in the post-Cold War environment. Raytheon’s Sentinel R.Mk1 was the end result of a long-running programme to field an Airborne Stand-off Radar (ASTOR) with moving target indication and high definition Synthetic Aperture Radar capabilities. Raytheon was eventually contracted to develop a five-aircraft ASTOR system, using Bombardier’s Global Express business jet as the airborne platform and initially basing the mission system on the U-2’s Hughes (now Raytheon) ASARS-2 radar. The Sentinel’s main radar was known as the Sentinel Dual Mode Radar Sensor (DMRS) and is a Raytheon dual-mode synthetic aperture radar/moving target indication (SAR/MTI) radar based on the ASARS-2, and using Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) technology. Service trials began in 2007 and an Operational Level Ground Station (OLGS) was deployed to Camp Bastion in Afghanistan in mid-November 2008, with two Sentinel aircraft deploying to Seeb airbase in Oman, from where No. V(AC) Squadron flew the first operational Sentinel R.Mk1 mission on 15 November 2008. INTEL FROM THE SHADOWS Raytheon also provided six Shadow R.Mk1 ISR aircraft, based on the King Air 350 (and plans are underway to expand the fleet to eight aircraft upgraded to R.Mk2 standards). The RAF officially took delivery of the first of four initial Shadow R.Mk1s in 2009, and these initially operated as a flight of No.V (AC) Squadron, before becoming No.14 Squadron in 2011. Though the RAF remains coy about the Shadow’s exact equipment fit and capabilities, its state of the art mission equipment was described as including "an under-fuselage electro-optical sensor turret, a variety of integrated sensors and extensive communications capability, managed from operator consoles in the cabin." The EO sensor is thought to be the same as was fitted to the Nimrod, an L3 Wescam MX-15, an electro-optical/infra red (EO/ IR) turret which also incorporates a laser designator. The aircraft also incorporates a forward-looking EO wide-area surveillance (WAS) sensor (which can be used for counter-improvised explosive device work and providing pattern-of-life intelligence).
The Shadow R.Mk1 is also reported to have a Communications Intelligence capability (COMINT) perhaps based on L3’s Spydr combined IMINT/COMINT system, with L3 Rio signals intelligence software, which can monitor a waveband of 20 MHz - 3 GHz, geo-locating emitters, and displaying them on a ‘Google Earth’ style map. Once an emitter has been located, the MX-15 can be
used to gather IMINT on the emitter’s user. The Shadow is able to monitor and locate the kinds of communications equipment typically used by insurgent groups. The concept of operations for the aircraft entails other UK ISR platforms making the initial detection of potential targets, with the Shadow then being tasked to investigate more closely, using its on-
D E T E C T • LO C AT E • P ROT E C T
See without being seen: Long range passive RF detection & tracking of airborne threats in 3D
AIR DEFENSE crfs.com/airdefense september 2021 - armadainternational.com
15
