UK AOC Newsletter - March  2009

AOC UK CHAPTER ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2009

Notwithstanding the best efforts of our weather and some unavoidable cancellations, some 30 members attended the UK Chapter Annual General Meeting held in the Royal Air Force Club on 5 February 2009. The main event of the evening was the formal handover of the reins of the UK Chapter from Bob Andrews to John Clifford who assumed the mantle of President.

John Clifford presents Bob Andrews with an engraved UK Chapter plaque and a volume of Alfred Price’s History of US Electronic Warfare.

Our guest speaker after the AGM was Squadron Leader Richard Birchenall RAF who gave an excellent and fascinating presentation on his winning Defence Academy MESE course thesis on the reverse engineering of Man Portable Air Defence Systems (MANPADS). Richard was afterwards presented with a cheque for £200 as part of our awards programme.

John Clifford presents Sqn Ldr Richard Birchenall RAF with a cheque for £200.

VISITS AND EVENTS

The following visits and events are being arranged for 2009 and details will be published as they become available:

• Visit to Chemring Countermeasures, Salisbury.
• AOC/Shephard EW 2009 Conference & Exhibition, 14-15 May, London.
• Visit to Dstl, Farnborough.
• Visit to Selex Galileo, Lincoln.
• Visit to BAE Systems, Warton, 23 September
• Visit to the Defence Intelligence & Security Centre, Chicksands, Bedfordshire.
• Joint AOC/DEHS EW Seminar.

A LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

It was with great pride that I became your President at the AOC UK Chapter AGM at the RAF Club earlier in February. Thank you one and all for giving me the opportunity to lead our Chapter at an incredibly exciting time for EW. Having just retired from active military duty and started work afresh, it is an exciting time for me personally too. The UK Chapter is the largest outside the US with members spread the length and breadth of the UK and further afield. That it runs smoothly, has a great visits programme and provides many awards to encourage EW, is really down to a hard core of people who sit on the Board. You can see who they are on the web site but I want to publicly thank them all for their great work, enthusiasm, humour and good advice – EW warriors all, working, serving or retired.

As usual during sustained and difficult military times, EW has come into its own. Even in relatively low tech asymmetric operations it has proven to be vital – keeping our men and women safe, keeping land and air platforms from harm and providing vital situational awareness. I see the mission of the UK Chapter at this time as being to carry a torch for EW by ensuring recognition of those who have made effective EW possible whether serving, from academia or from industry by expanding the award making aspects of our work

But that alone is insufficient. We must try to ensure the lessons of the importance of EW are not lost in future and that more influential people understand them and act on them now. We must also ensure the vitality and growth of our Chapter. This means reaching out to more people, recruiting more members, more military members, younger members and more diverse members.

All this will take time and effort but, most importantly, new ideas. Please feel free to email me using the UK Chapter website with your views and ideas. Grumbles should be written on the back of a £20 note and sent to the Treasurer!

Best wishes to you all and I hope to meet up with some of you at the AOC/Shephard EW Conference in London on 14/15 May where the UK Chapter hopes to have a presence.

John Clifford OBE
27th February 2009

CANADA RE-FORMS 414 SQUADRON

A formal ceremony at Gatineau Airport, near Ottawa, on 20 January 2009 marked the official re-formation of 414 (Electronic Warfare Support) Squadron, Canadian Forces. The new independent flying unit will not have its own aircraft but use eight former Luftwaffe Dassault-Breguet Dornier Alpha Jets provided by Canadian civilian contractor Top Aces. Previously known as 414 Combat Support Squadron, when it operated EW Challengers and T 33AN Silver Stars, it was last disbanded in 2002. Nicknamed the 'Black Knights', 414 (EWS) Squadron will provide electronic warfare support to the Canadian Forces for combat training purposes.

Top Aces, based in Pointe Claire, Quebec, was formed eight years ago by three former Canadian Forces fighter pilots and in 2005 gained a major contract to provide Alpha Jets for Canadian Forces training. This has continued to expand and now involves a whole package of support services for the Canadian military, including target towing, radar and communications testing and electronic warfare training, including jamming capabilities.

THE EW MARKET

An estimated US $27.8 billion will be spent over the next 10 years on the development and production of major EW systems, according to Forecast International's "The Market for Electronic Warfare Systems”. In total, some 46,060 EW units will be produced, including electronic countermeasures (ECM) systems, radar warning receivers (RWRs), and electronic support measure (ESM) systems, among others. Proven EW systems are still in high demand and nowhere is this more apparent than in the area of aircraft self-protection systems. For example, Northrop Grumman was selected in July 2008 to provide its Large Aircraft IR Countermeasures (LAIRCM) system for the Royal Air Force's Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) under a US $93 million contract. The first set of wings for these new aircraft, based on the Airbus A330-200, completed manufacture in the UK on 25 February 2009.