Why 2 x Squadrons?
The original concept for Waddington was to have just one Sqn (8). In those days (1991) it was envisaged that 9 op Crews would be available plus an extra 2 x Crews for Sentry Training Sqn (STS) plus Staneval. However, this gave a supervision burden for the leadership - with 17 personnel per crew then the Sqn would be over 150 strong (including Boss, XO etc). This was more than half the aircrew in 11 Group!
So, for example, iaw GASOs the Surveillance leader had to personally fly a 6 month check with each of his charges - each crew having 5 surveillance personnel. In those days we flew 10 hour missions, so the leader would have to fly 900 hours a year just to carry out checks! (not that we got close to 9 crews available).
At the same time, STS wanted a Sqn number plate, so the decision was taken to reform 23 as the second E-3D Sqn. This would lead to 8 Sqn with 6 Op Crews, and 23 with 3 Op crews plus the training crew.
Following 11 years of continual operational deployments (Balkans/Bosnia/Albania/Kosovo/Afghanistan/GW2), it was decided that more crews were needed (personnel were flying in excess of 800 hours per year - One pilot even approached 1000 hours and had to be sent on leave so as not to break the tabboo. Therefore both 8 and 23 received 6 Op crews each, and 54 was reformed to take the training effort. Although in theory we had 14 crews, that figure was rarely approached, and personnel had to be brought back to the Component to man the Sqns for some operational flying.
Following GW2, the Sqn were brought home for rest and recouperation having greatly outflown all expected hours. Sadly we never went back again - tha aircraft considered too expensive and too capable to carry out the roles over Afghanistan and Iraq (the low overall flying allied rate and lack of a creditable air threat). So, not on Ops we have taken a low priority for funding for the past few years and although we are forbidden to talk about the result......
lets just hope that we are given an operation again soon, and resources will return (but don't hold your breath!
W