Personnel assigned to operate the Royal Air Force’s upgraded Shadow Mk2 surveillance aircraft fleet will soon have access to a customised, UK-based training system.
The expansion and modernisation of the Shadow Mk1 fleet, which provides the Ministry of Defence with crucial intelligence-gathering capabilities, will see the introduction of the Shadow Mk2 in 2024.
For this purpose, a £110 million contract was awarded to Raytheon UK in 2021. This contract ensures the creation of 150 highly-skilled positions, including specialised aerospace roles and apprenticeships at the Broughton facility in North Wales, as well as numerous additional jobs within Wales and the broader UK supply chain.
Currently, Royal Air Force personnel are required to travel abroad for simulator training. However, a new £11.5 million contract awarded by Defence Equipment & Support to Raytheon UK will enable crews to train on a Full Flight Simulator for the Shadow Mk2 within the UK.
Eliminating the need for overseas travel will not only reduce the Ministry of Defence’s carbon footprint but also increase access to high-quality training. Furthermore, the RAF say that this change is expected to result in annual savings of up to £200,000 due to increased efficiencies.
You can read more about this here.
“Currently, Royal Air Force personnel are required to travel abroad for simulator training. However, a new £11.5 million contract awarded by Defence Equipment & Support to Raytheon UK will enable crews to train on a Full Flight Simulator for the Shadow Mk2 within the UK.”
With no chance of being doused in aviation fuel in the process.
Something we should be looking into to protect our most vulnerable drones and aircraft in the future. I’m thinking along the lines of frying attacking aircraft’s onboard systems.
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Pity that drone wasent equpped with a, remote heave calibure machine gun, could have shot that jet down as it passed close, as tge camra was tracking it surly a weapon could have too.
That would have been upping the likelihood of world war three by a percentage point or two. The Russian had a gun there was a reason they did not use it…Harassment that ends in an accident is close to the line but is not going over it..shoot a gun at another nations manned fighters in international airspace is jumping right over that line while shouting yahoo cowboy….it’s on baby.
Let’s put it this way what would have been the international response if the RN had started blowing holes in islandic coastguard cutters with 4.5 guns during the Cod wars….
Nothing about the previously reported increase in Shadow Mk2 numbers from 6 to 8 airframes. One hopes 14 Squadron at RAF Waddington will still get the 8
UK Shadow upgrade passes critical design review
09 MARCH 2023
“In announcing a GBP11.5 million (USD13.6 million) training contract for the capability with Raytheon, the MoD said that the Shadow R2 upgrade and its efforts to increase the fleet from six to eight aircraft had successfully passed its CDR.”
LINK
https://www.raf.mod.uk/index.cfm/_api/asset/image/?filePath=/raf-beta/assets/Image/6606296F-2E54-45E4-8F09A358AF2398C0-image%201.jpg
Nice pic Nigel, thanks
Good to see things are still on track!
They’d better do, seeming as the Islanders and Defenders were discarded, leaving Shadow to do all roles in that area.
This was first announced in the 2015 SDSR, incredibly, and yet is still not actioned.
Ah the shadow, not often mentioned, what ever it actually does. Part of that shady intel world.
They seem to have part replaced, along with other aircraft, the role of the Northolt Station Flight, for starters, as they have been logged circling towns and cities. They are also supposed to support SF.
Perhaps the Russian fast jet pilots had been thinking about Second World War and earlier methods for termination of certain Pilot-less Vengeance Weapons before their engines cut out and they fell to earth, Killing People On the Ground or Farm Animals in open countryside.
Just Saying