Sentinel now out of service
 

The production contract was signed in 1999 and it was first delivered to the RAF in 2008. The first flight was in 2004.

The authors have confused Shadow and Sentinel...

It wasn't a UOR!

What an utter waste and with only about 6.460 hours on each one... why the heck they haven't looked at selling them on, surely there are "friendly nations" that would have been interested in them or is the fit still that classified?.

The journalist can't add (or I am going daft)
But it has finished it's 14 year service life..... and was delivered in 2008?

Either way, it seems a terrible waste that aircraft that are only 14 years old are being retired.

What this decision say about future aircraft to be service?

It says that if you rush to meet a niche capability solution without fully appreciating wider battle space integration issues, you may not get a full return on your investment.

You were probably thinking of CASTOR, the Corps Area Stand-Off Radar old sport.
The Corps being 1 (BR) Corps of the BAOR back in the 70's. I worked on the concept phase in 1978.
The AAC were impressed with the US Army OV-1D Mohawk and thought that something similar would be useful.
It's a long sad story but it eventually mutated into Sentinel, by which time there was no BAOR and no massed ranks of Soviet armour to spot.
Cue the 'ASTOR isn't CASTOR' brigade.
It was an aircraft looking for a job in a world which had changed.
Lots of very talented people used it to the best of their ability and no doubt it did some good.
Now that it has gone .. who will miss it?

I recall there being an ASTOR Assistant Directorate in MoD(PE) in the mid-late 80s. It was the Director's baby. He retired about 1990, and started at the company in the US the next week.

It was relatively common to receive a nil cost UOR for kit that was already under contract. It served as jusification for Production Permits and Concessions; but as Two's In says, lowering the return on investment. A couple of examples I can think of from GW1 were ARC164 HaveQuick II radios and Prophet Radar Warning Receivers.

I flew the Castor in a Canberra at RAE in late 70's. Seemed to work

If I knew to what you referring....

As for resale.... Bet your bottom dollar that Uncle Sam and ITAR blocked sale to overseas customers

It would work as a flying horse box though.......

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....4e466eaff8.jpg

Wensleydale
:D:D:D

Yup! CASTOR ( Can Anybody State The Operational Requirement? ) Mutated to ASTOR (Anybody can State The Operational Requirement)

If they're not allowed to be sold as they stand (anyway, which "friendly nation" are we thinking of selling them to?) then how much might it cost to convert them back to civilian Global Express - if that's even practical - versus how much would they then be worth in today's bizjet market?

A 32 squadron 146 replacement and a job creation scheme, bean counters probably haven't thought of that. Presume one won't even get preserved.

It was at Waddington in 2007 given I was there at the same time. We watched, with "amused interest " one day as one was towed from 5 to 51.....the towing team consisting of no less than seven people....all wearing hard hats. I understand that, at the time, there were some "cultural misunderstandings " between the Army and the RAF when 5 started to operate the type.

There's no obvious customer to sell them to - conversion back would be expensive (if even possible) - the USAF as additional E-11 airframes may have been one, but they are ordering new (and only the first E-11 had the Sentinel-style add-ons from a previous role)

Replacement? Well there's the NATO AGS system (Could the UK buy into that?), P-8 with AGS (are the USN going ahead with that?) Or your and my favourite, the 'capability gap'