The Ministry of Defence has paused its plan to fully militarise the two Dassault Falcon 900LX jets that fly Britain’s ministers and senior officials, putting on hold the work to transfer them onto the Military Aircraft Register and to fit them with the defensive systems they would need to operate in conflict zones, the Ministry of Defence has told Parliament.
The Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, Luke Pollard, answered a written question on Monday from the Conservative MP for Huntingdon, Ben Obese-Jecty, who had asked what progress had been made in transferring the Envoy IV fleet onto the military register.
Pollard told him that the aircraft were continuing to provide command support across a range of air-mobility tasks and that several options were being considered to expand the fleet’s future capability, including military modifications designed to allow them to operate in what officials describe as non-benign airspace, but that the work was “currently paused whilst other activity has been prioritised.”
The Envoy IV is the RAF’s designation for two Falcon 900LX business jets that the Ministry of Defence bought under the 2021 Integrated Review to replace its ageing fleet of four BAE Systems 146 aircraft, the workhorse white-tailed jets that had for years carried prime ministers, senior officials and military commanders into theatres including Iraq and Afghanistan. The new Falcons started flying in June 2022, owned by the military but registered with the civilian regulator and crewed by a mix of military and civilian pilots alongside RAF cabin staff, on the understanding that they would eventually transition to a fully military footing.
That transition is the second phase of the Command Support Air Transport, or CSAT, recapitalisation programme, the part of the original contract that was always supposed to give the new fleet the same hard-edged capability the BAe146s had carried, namely defensive aid suites to confuse incoming missiles and seekers, a secure communications fit-out and the certification needed to fly into airspace where things go wrong.
The same phase was also intended to bring the flights under sole RAF crew operation, with long-term maintenance support running through to 2037.
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“Command Support Air Transport, or CSAT, recapitalisation programme,”
Cuts program more like. These assets replaced several BAE 125 Jets as well as the 146s.
As always, some has been privitised, using Titan airways.
Utterly daft….
We should have purchased a couple of Global Express…larger, longer ranged….and crucially, we spent £10’s of millions developing and installing a full self defence system and encrypted satcom systems onboard…for Sentinel R.1….
We’re now going to repeat the same work for a less capable platform….
But we have an a330 and a321 for longer range stuff.
I ran the Sentinel completion centre at Broughton. The DAS capability on Sentinel was never fully certified and the DAS system, especially the TRD was never used.
This move makes sense to me, if you need a militarised VIP air transport then use the Voyager.
Probably a good idea to add defensive capability anyway, but should they be wilfully flying in ‘non-benign airspace’?
I wouldn’t bother putting defensive aids on a plane for MPs, they’ll be fine.👍🏿