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Newsletter Letter from the Sqn, Although It Is Sad That I Must Do So Again Within Such Challenging Times

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Newsletter Letter from the Sqn, Although It Is Sad That I Must Do So Again Within Such Challenging Times 56 Squadron – Home of the Firebirds Fellow Firebirds I am pleased to address you once more in what I plan to become a regular bi-annual newsletter letter from the Sqn, although it is sad that I must do so again within such challenging times. Since I last wrote to you, we have continued to face the unprecedented challenges of living and operating in a COVID environment. I offer my condolences and thoughts to anyone associated with our 56 Sqn family who may have been profoundly affected during this period, and I hope that we all find a way to remain safe and well until this challenging period comes to an end. As I reflect on events since the last newsletter, I am delighted to report that our Sqn has remained extremely busy and at the forefront of some of the very latest capability development activities. Programmes such as E7, Protector and Airseeker have continued to mature and our Operational Assessment activities at RAF Lossiemouth played a significant part assuring the Royal Air Force in making a declaration of Initial Operating Capability for P-8 Poseidon. The sheer diversity and breadth of 56 Sqn activity never fails to astound me, and our personnel also continue to play a major part in thematic areas such as Space, Intelligence Exploitation, Windfarms, C2 Systems, Air Defence Radars and Remotely Piloted Air Systems. It has also been a period of evolution and I am pleased to report the reformation of 216 Sqn which will temporarily sit alongside 56 Sqn as we conduct development work on revolutionary swarming drones. We are also expanding the remit of 56 Sqn to become a whole aircraft test and evaluation Sqn and our first Test Pilots have begun to arrive and assume their new role. It is an exciting time. In parallel, we are also seeing adjustments to our ways of working and every member of 56 Sqn has now received their own personal MoD laptop, allowing us increased flexibility to conduct our work away from the Headquarters. We have also embraced applications such as Skype and Microsoft teams, improving our connectivity and allowing us to enjoy the benefit and efficiencies of remote working. Whilst test and evaluation remains the Sqn’s core activity, as you would expect in a time of national crisis, we have also maintained our readiness to support the national effort throughout by keeping members of the Sqn at readiness to support Military Aid to Civil Authorities. We have deployed several Firebirds to various locations throughout the period in support of COVID tasks and we remain on high readiness to provide support as the situation dictates; particularly, as the requirement to Figure 1: Westminster Abbey support the immunisation programme becomes clearer. As part of our last newsletter in July, I explained why we had to take steps to cancel the Sqn Association dinner in June. At that time, I hoped that in the New Year newsletter, I would be able to give you a firm commitment for the 2021 event. I am therefore pleased to confirm that we are planning for this year’s event to occur on 11 June at the Assembly Rooms in Lincoln. Obviously, this occasion will be subject to the relaxation of existing restrictions, but I hope to see as many of you as possible later this summer. As you are no doubt aware 2020 was the eightieth anniversary of the Battle of Britain, an event, which in normal times would have been the centre piece of the Air Force’s ceremonial calendar. Whilst the events were certainly not of the scale of previous milestone anniversaries, The Standard, along with the Standards of the other frontline sqns of the Battle, were paraded in Westminster Abbey in a fitting act of remembrance. Finally, to mark the pasting of the eightieth anniversary, retired Firebird Phillip Bonner has very kindly provided an excellent piece for the newsletter on the Battle and the Sqn’s role throughout that period and wider involvement in the war. I would like to take this opportunity to invite all of you to write a short article relating to your time on 56 Sqn that we would be delighted to share in future editions of this newsletter. Dave Smathers Wg Cdr Officer Commanding 56 Squadron Air & Space Warfare Centre 5 Feb 21 Intelligence and Space Exploitation Test & Evaluation Flight Despite the considerable upheaval experienced over these last months, the ISX TEF has remained fully engaged delivering support to its Intelligence and Space customers. The pace of the adoption of new platforms and capabilities has not diminished, and the fight has managed to rise to the challenge. Underpinning this work is the growing emphasis on the RAF’s ‘ASTRA’ vision, which places the exploitation of data and information at its very centre. This means an exciting future for the ISX TEF, as data exploitation is one of the core responsibilities. This ASTRA vision has already led to some promising developments. One of these developments involves better use of information generated during each flying mission. In the era of ‘big data’, friendly-force information is just as critical as that of the enemy. In this spirit, specialist support has been given to the JFAC and 11 Gp to formulate a better understanding of a bespoke tool which will help the deployed Air Component Commander rapidly use data already available. Whilst still in its early stages, it is hoped that by harvesting this information faster and more accurately, detailed situation awareness can be generated to feed better predictive modelling. This support has been provided using the engineering and Intelligence subject matter expertise found within the TEF and has helped to showcase how our work can evolve and grow alongside the ambitions of the RAF. The Space team has been similarly engaged, playing a central role in the delivery of the AURORA platform for the UK Space Operations Centre and UK Space Agency. Whilst still in its infancy, the ambitious new command and control platform will help the UK military and civilian organisations to better exploit existing Space capabilities, as Figure 2: UK Space Operations Centre well as underpin the capabilities of the future. Space is an exciting, dynamic and rapidly developing domain for the RAF and the UK in general. The Space team have and will undoubtedly continue to play a key role in shaping the present and future direction in this area. These are just a couple of examples of work the ISX TEF has been engaged with. The breadth of our work encompasses numerous other exciting new developments and possible avenues to explore and I look forward to sharing some of these in future updates. Airborne Electronic Surveillance Test & Evaluation Flight The AIRSEEKER (AS) team all have a background operating the RC-135 Rivet Joint (RJ) aircraft, which replaced the Nimrod R1 in the UK’s airborne Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) role after the R1 was retired from service in 2011. From this period, a close collaborative relationship with the USAF has developed, with UK aircrew regularly operating on US RJ aircraft on operations around the world. It was this cooperation that the AS team have been keen to capitalise on in our efforts to improve the way we do our core task of assuring the AS capability through our conduct of Test and Evaluation. Using the personal and professional relationships developed through this joint operation of the RJ, the team has fostered an excellent working relationship with our USAF colleagues. This has recently resulted in the co-signing of a formal agreement between the 56 Sqn and the 55th Operations Group at Offutt AFB, whereby the RAF benefits from dedicated T&E flying on USAF jets, and the USAF gains the experience and mentorship of trained UK T&E personnel. A few notable successes from this symbiotic relationship has convinced the USAF that there is Figure 3: Nimrod R1 and USAF Rivet Joint significant benefit to RJ aircrew carrying out independent assessments of capabilities as they are integrated onto the platform. The Advanced Capabilities Mission Evaluation (ACME) team was formally stood up at Offutt in the late summer of 2020, with 56 Sqn AS personnel now firmly embedded in the organisation. Over the coming months, the ACME relationship will be further enhanced as the AS team prepare to deploy to the USA, (Feb to Apr 21), to conduct the mission system Baseline upgrade assessment of the AS capability. The team will also be afforded the opportunity to witness activity pertaining to several emerging capabilities, which downstream, will further bolster the operational effectiveness of the AS system, both in terms of ground mission exploitation and air platform capability. The second element of the TEF, the Maritime team, have continued to progress the documentation set and trial planning for the next assessment of the Poseidon MRA Mk1 mission systems at Interim Capability Milestone (ICM). The focus for ICM will further examine and expand on the sensor assessment work that 56 Sqn conducted in early 2020 as the Poseidon Programme successfully achieved Initial Operating Capability. Sadly, the COVID pandemic has put paid to regular deployments to RAF Lossiemouth, but the team are planning to conduct a period of focused trial activity in early Spring 2021 which should satisfy several of the higher priority Acoustic and Radar trial objectives, providing further evidence to support ICM. From a Poseidon ground mission support perspective, at the end of 2020, the Maritime team distributed their trial report following their assessment of the ability of the Poseidon Tactical Operations Centre (TOC) to provide ground-based mission support and data exploitation for Poseidon missions.
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