ISR Needs Put Fighters in Surveillance Role

Changing combat conditions in Afghanistan and the advent of high-resolution pod-mounted sensors have seen a surge in fighter planes being used for a new type of recon activity known as non-traditional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (NTISR).

Since deploying to Afghanistan in 2009, Royal Air Force Tornado GR4s have been used extensively in a counter-IED (improvised explosive device) role while still performing their established close air support mission. To enable the switch from one set of mission requirements to another while airborne, a two-aircraft patrol will carry a complementary suite of sensors and weapons. Alongside the onboard 27-mm. cannon, each aircraft is capable of carrying a mix of Paveway IV guided bombs and dual-mode-seeker Brimstone antiarmor missiles, the latter being the only weapon on any International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) aircraft capable of tracking and engaging a moving target.

The GR4 also carries a Litening III targeting pod, which can be used to gather photographic imagery when not in targeting mode. During planned sorties, the Litening pod will gather photoreconnaissance information, often of pre-selected areas such as planned convoy routes, or locations where insurgent activity has been reported or suspected. The pod can also deliver full-motion video, which can be downlinked live to troops on the ground and/or studied afterwards.

Some GR4 missions—typically 3-5 sorties per week—have one aircraft carrying the Goodrich-built Raptor (Reconnaissance Airborne Pod for Tornado) sensor. This produces high-quality photographic and infrared (IR) imagery covering a large area. While the precise limits of the capability are classified, the Tornado force team says it is able to bring back detailed photographs of an area such as an entire valley in a 4-hr. sortie.

“There’s no one answer—we have a suite of capabilities to deliver a blend,” says Sqdn. Leader John Lipson, chief of staff for operations at RAF Marham’s Tactical Imagery Intelligence Wing (TIW), which provides analysis support primarily to the Tornado force, but also across the RAF’s imagery-generating squadrons. “We fly Raptor three, four or five times a week, while the Litening III pod goes on every sortie. It covers a smaller area but complements Raptor.

“But it’s not just about looking at images—it’s about the intelligence capability we can then grow on that. My analysts will provide a very quick answer to the customer if needed, or we can provide a much more detailed product.”

The TIW team combines imagery from the pods with other sources to maximize intelligence depth. Six of TIW’s 125 personnel are deployed to Kandahar air base, Afghanistan, with two supporting the British Army’s Hermes 450 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at Camp Bastion and others working with 39 Sqdn.’s Reaper UAV crews at Creech AFB, Nev. The majority of the wing’s analysts, however, are based at Marham. The large, detailed pictures provided by Raptor are supplemented by the pod’s IR data and by smaller area pictures from the Litening III, which in turn are assembled in a mosaic to provide additional intelligence of different depth over a larger compound area.

The take from a typical Raptor sortie requires 14 hr. for TIW to process. Royal Engineers seconded to TIW enhance the product with data including digital elevation information gleaned from satellites. By studying time-stamped imagery taken ­during sunlight, heights of buildings can be calculated from shadow lengths. A detailed target analysis (DTA) package can be produced to order, perhaps to support a proposed landing site for a helicopter insertion. Composite data gleaned from all the intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance assets, and worked on by the TIW staff in theater and in the U.K., would enable the DTA to include information about possible lines of sight overlooking the area, as well as the heights of nearby buildings or trees.

Once analyzed, the imagery is archived and remains in constant use. This “pattern of life” picture is continually updated and enhanced by each additional overflight of a particular area. “One of the benefits of the Raptor imagery is that it covers such a large area, we can use that for other tasking,” says Wing Cdr. Andrew Stewart, TIW’s operations commander. “A case in point: last week we managed to produce 333 products from our archive to support [a ground operation by] 2 Para.”

TIW uses commercially available analytical software—Stewart declines to say which package—that has helped the wing by being more intuitive for the often young imagery analysts who are used to programs such as Google Earth. The wing was formed in 2002 by combining three Reconnaissance Intelligence Centers that had worked separately within squadrons that operated different surveillance platforms.

“The same argument has been used to benefit defense by bringing the RAF imagery analysts from [39 Sqdn., operators of the Reaper, and 5 AC (Army Cooperation) Sqdn., which flies the Sentinel R1 Airborne Stand-Off Radar system] into TIW,” Stewart says. “So we have that umbrella organization that can provide far better output and support to operations and the development of capabilities.”

The RAF’s operations go beyond fighters and are part of a service-wide focus on combat intelligence, surveillance, targeting and reconnaissance (Combat IStar). Since his appointment in July 2009, Air Chief Marshall Sir Stephen Dalton has made refocusing the RAF’s role around Combat IStar a priority.

Some operations rely on teaming between different platforms. RAF Sentinel R1 aircraft have flown missions to check the deserts of Afghanistan’s Helmand Province for signs of bomb-making activity in the company of a Reaper UAV and a pair of helicopters. When the Sentinel radar detects tracks of interest on the ground, the Reaper’s visual sensors are cross-cued, and if necessary, the helicopters can deploy troops to investigate. The abnormality often proves benign, but the approach has achieved substantial results.

“On one operation alone there was 20,000 tons of explosive-making equipment located and subsequently destroyed. I don’t know how many IEDs never made it to roads in that particular scenario,” says Wing Cdr. Rich Barrow, commander of 5 AC Sqdn., the unit based at RAF Waddington that flies the Sentinel and the RAF’s small fleet of Shadow R1s, modified Beechcraft King Air 350ERs. “Having this wide-area search capability means a significant difference in the amount of influence you can have in those vast desert areas. On a daily basis we were conducting 25-35 [reconnaissance missions] with the helicopter when we were there. When we weren’t present they were only able to manage between three and five in the same period.”

But the U.K. Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR), published last October, poses difficult questions about how the Combat IStar mission will be carried out once U.K. forces leave Afghanistan.

As well as canceling the Nimrod MRA4 maritime patrol aircraft, SDSR ordered that the Sentinel R1 system be retired when Afghan operations end. The capability of Raptor is admired across ISAF and has assumed an increasingly fundamental role in Combat IStar and counter-IED missions.

Options to maintain the capability beyond Tornado’s out-of-service date are being studied. The Raptor sensors were tested on Reaper some years ago, and Goodrich is developing a production version of the pod, but there is at present no U.K. requirement to do so. Reaper’s status as an urgent operational requirement means the type is unlikely to remain part of the RAF fleet once British forces leave Afghanistan.

Ultimately, the most likely solution would be to transition Tornado’s unique capabilities to the Typhoon fighter by the time the GR4 is retired. Dalton is confident this will be done. “[Typhoon] will meet the requirements we will have at that stage,” he tells DTI. “Typhoon will be able to pick them up and, in fact, it will be better because it’s a more agile airplane, more serviceable and has been designed to do these things from the outset.”

Also being used for NTISR in Afghanistan are Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNAF) F-16s, equipped with the Rafael Recce-Lite reconnaissance pod, says Col. Peter Tankink, RNAF F-16 operations manager. “In 2007 we dropped a full load of bombs on every sortie.” Tankink told a Defense IQ conference in London last October. “Today, we employ weapons once a month.”

The Dutch have maintained a four-ship unit of F-16s at Kandahar air base since 2006 to cover their units, and have been using Recce-Lite in theater since September 2009. Its main task is looking for disturbed ground that indicates a buried IED. “Usually, they don’t locate them on a straight, open stretch, but by corners and chokepoints,” Tankink says.

U.S. Air Force F-16s also took on a NTISR role in Afghanistan last year, with the South Carolina Air National Guard’s 169th fighter wing. The unit used data link-equipped Sniper targeting pods to perform point-of-origin searches that determined the source of mortar attacks and tracked enemy combatants in cluttered environments.

The F-15 Eagle, meanwhile, has added two NTISR sensors to its equipment. The Northrop Grumman ASQ-236 is operational with USAF. This is a high-resolution, possibly Ku-band, synthetic aperture radar with an active, electronically scanned array antenna. It was developed for tasks such as bomb-damage assessment and may have the resolution to detect IEDs in bad weather.

SOURCE: 02/02/11 - By Angus Batey
RAF Marham and RAF Waddington - AVIATION WEEK

Photo Story: A USAF F-15E Strike Eagle from the 494th Fighter Squadron, RAF Lakenheath, UK in-flight on a combat sortie in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom on April 22, 2004. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon II) (Released). Holding 2xAIM-120s, 2xAIM-9s, 4xGBU-12s, and a single centerline mounted GBU-31 (JDAM)

(10.02.2011)