U.K., U.S. To Share Intel As In WWII

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U.K., U.S. To Share Intel As In WWII​

There appears to be an emerging upside – improved intelligence gathering – to London’s defense budget cutting.

Operationally, British forces may be linked to those of France to compensate for shortages in unmanned reconnaissance, strike aircraft, aircraft carriers, troops and airlift. The value of that merger is being questioned because the strength of the military and defense spending is slipping in both countries.

But in a second, and so far unnoticed move in the realm of intelligence and high-technology sensors, the new, improved overseas linkages are going to be with Washington, U.S. officials say.

“In the future, the U.S. and U.K. will collaborate closer than anytime since World War II,” says a veteran airman with insight into a number of the programs that are expected to be shared. Perhaps the most stunning change will be Britain’s retirement of the intelligence-gathering Nimrod MR 2s associated with a structural weakness in the aircraft. The issue parallels that of the U.S. C-141, which was retired because of a similar flaw.

The U.S. and U.K. now have a memorandum of understanding to buy into the RC-135 Rivet Joint program that is run by the U.S. Air Force. Critics have suggested that the Royal Air Force/British Army’s new Raytheon-built Sentinel R1 ground surveillance radar aircraft (five of them with multiservice crews equip the RAF’s No. 5 Squadron) could be refurbished with signals intelligence (sigint) equipment and offer 80% of the Rivet Joint’s intelligence gathering and analysis capabilities at a smaller cost.

However, those involved with the Air Force’s special missions aircraft say differently.“They don’t know what they’re talking about,” says a veteran intelligence official. Even tacking additional equipment onto the larger Nimrod still “will not make an 80% Rivet Joint – not even close. The U.K. is getting the full enchilada – basically a production unit of the Block 10 aircraft which is state of the art.”

The Rivet Joint fleet of aircraft is continually being rotated through upgrade facilities at Greenville, Texas, where the Sentinel was also tested in the final phases of its development. In Greenville, three KC-135s will be rebuilt into RC-135s for the Royal Air Force.

“Unlike the Nimrod, which has a structural flaw that cannot be economically repaired, the RC-135 airframe has no such structural issues,” the U.S. official says. “Big Safari [program] maintains them – as it will with the U.K. aircraft – from cradle to grave. The U.S. is already the world leader in the sigint art and working hand-in-glove [with the U.K.] on RJ will provide both nations with ever-increasing technical collection capabilities.”

Photo: USAF


U.K., U.S. To Share Intel As In WWII | AVIATION WEEK