Jane's Defence Weekly
DSEI 2013: Raytheon proposes maritime patrol Sentinel R.1
Copyright © IHS Global Limited, 2013
DSEI 2013: Raytheon proposes maritime patrol Sentinel R.1
Record Infohide
Publication:Jane's Defence Weekly
Author:
Gareth Jennings, London
Section:
Country:United Kingdom
Last posted:2013-09-12
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1420037The
RAF currently fields five Sentinel R.1 aircraft, which Raytheon say can be
reconfigured to undertake maritime patrol missions as part of a multirole
package. (IHS/Patrick Allen)
Raytheon is pitching the Sentinel R.1 stand-off ground surveillance radar
aircraft as a possible solution to bridge the UK's maritime patrol capability
gap, a company official told IHS Jane's on 12 September.
Head of Airborne Solutions for Raytheon UK, Paul Francis, said that the idea
of utilising the wide-area surveillance aircraft for maritime patrol has been
presented to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and that there has been a favourable
response to the concept. However, he conceded that this is wholly dependent on
the platform being retained post the Strategic Defence and Security Review in
2015.
"There is a lot of interest [within the MoD], but bear in mind the current
situation [regarding plans to retire the aircraft in 2015]," he said at the 2013
DSEI defence and security exhibition in London.
Although the Sentinel's dual-mode ground moving target indicator synthetic
aperture radar was designed for, and is wholly geared towards, overland use,
Francis explained that it would only require a software change to make it
compatible with maritime operations also.
These changes should enable the Sentinel to detect surface vessels and
potentially submarine periscopes, and additional sensors could be fitted to
further boost the platform's maritime surveillance capability. Francis stressed,
however, that the Sentinel would not have an offensive anti-surface vessel or
anti-submarine capability, and would be purely a maritime surveillance platform.
According to Francis, such a multirole platform would be an ideal fit for the
UK Royal Air Force (RAF), which has not been able to field a maritime patrol
capability since the government retired its Hawker Siddeley Nimrod MR.2 and
cancelled its BAE Systems Nimrod MRA.4 replacement in 2010.