A Royal Air Force Poseidon MRA1 maritime patrol aircraft recently demonstrated its capability to deploy search and rescue equipment designed to support up to 100 individuals in maritime distress.

The trials, which were conducted off the southwest coast, involved the successful release of a UNIPAC-III Search and Rescue kit from the aircraft’s weapons bay into the sea.

Upon impact with the water, the semi-rigid aerial delivery container activated, providing a fully inflated life raft and necessary survival equipment for individuals in need.

According to the RAF here, the survival aid kit includes food, water, and communications to support up to 20 persons for 72 hours. Up to five systems can be carried by Poseidon and delivered in a single air drop if required, supporting up to 100 survivors.

The trial involved a Poseidon aircraft that departed from RAF Lossiemouth, where engineers had meticulously loaded the search and rescue equipment on board. The flight was conducted by skilled personnel from 206 and CXX Squadrons.

This trial effectively demonstrated the UK Poseidon’s capability to organically deploy search and rescue equipment from the aircraft. Upon completion of additional required activities, this capability will be added to the platform’s overall suite and declared available for use by all squadron crews. The anticipated timeline for this is April 23.

According to a news release: 

“The nine-strong fleet of RAF Poseidon aircraft has already conducted search and rescue missions, but the new equipment enhances the ability to support long range search and rescue and provide support to Royal Navy vessels including submarines. Importantly it will allow Poseidon to conduct the drop of search and rescue dinghies itself, rather than operate in tandem with others to do so.”

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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54 COMMENTS

  2. I think there is some international obligation to have this capability. Believe its been a Herc tasking since Nimrod. No doubt someone can clarify.

    • Yes indeed it’s all managed via the SAR framework. But basically we have two international SAR responsibilities aeronautical SAR and maritime SAR ( land SAR is not governed by international law). The key bits of international law are:

      Convention of safety at sea 1974, convention of the high seas 1958, convention of the law of the sea 1988. There is also a convention on civil aviation 1944.

      from these agreements our SAR area ( both airo and maritime stretches for around 2 million square miles into the mid Atlantic ( we have a very large SAR area) costal and green water maritime SAR is managed the UK SAR helicopter service ( 22 cabs and 10 bases) as well as the RNLI life boats. Our mid Atlantic SAR is more the domain of the military as our civilian SAR rotors only have a 200 to 250 MN operating radius ( out to the west coast of Ireland basically).

        • Hi Daniele, it long gone ( 2016 ) by 2017, which was the last big update of the SAR framework, the ARCC was based in the national Maritime operations centre in Fareham ( NMOC) which is the central hub for all UK maritime and airo nautical SAR, it’s run by the coastguard. They have access to all the coastguard rescue teams, coastguard aircraft, RNLI resources, independent lifeboats and lifeguard services as well as SAR helicopter service…which they can divert across the county as needed. They would also sort out the MACA requests to use the RAF fixed wing assets like Poseidon. Remembering the military no longer have any permanent fixed role in SAR (beyond rescuing their own people) so it’s all via MACA request…..

          personally I don’t like MACA as system. By the time it’s worked through the process the need may be gone or people are already dead. It’s clumsy and bureaucratic…so if I was running an incident control centre if I wanted to ask for military aid ( have done about twice in career so it’s rare) even if it’s just down the road ( it was) I have to ask the NHSE regional team..who consider it…push it up the line to the NHSE central team..who will think about it…then push it the the DOH who find a minister of state…who then has to talk to a minister of state in the MOD..who then asks the relevant armed service…who think about it…decide what resource they will give ( we can’t ask for specific resources….just ask for help and describe why we cannot manage) then the decision goes back to the minister at the MOD back to the ministers at the DOH down the NHSE national and regional chain to the incident room ( with a yes give this officer a call or no your not having help). At any time any level can block it for any reason ( the DOH have to pay the bill that the MOD say it will cost…..) I’ve literally had stranded patients having MIs and stokes waiting 8-12 hours with no way to get to them….due to deep snow that stopped all but a couple of dedicated all terrain rescue vehicles ( I work in an area with some very isolated uplands) and by the time we got a MACA response the snow had melted.

          • In certain circumstances (risk of loss of life/limb), establishment commanders can authorise assistance without recieving a MACA request.

            From JDP 02:

            Authorisation
            The default setting is that a Defence minister must authorise all requests for Defence assistance. Exceptions to this policy includes ‘immediate assistance’
            (life at risk, a need to alleviate distress
            or to protect signifificant property). In this instance, local military commanders can authorise deployments and requests relating to Defence estate. Depending upon whether the civil authorities’ intended use is considered contentious or not, the request will be authorised either by a senior military offificer locally or by a senior military offificer in the MOD.

          • Not that I have ever seen, the one time that I know a NHS organisation asked for desperate help outside of the MACA process…all that happened was the organisation got reported to the MOD who reported them the DOH and all hell landed on the director who had dared to ask….I can categorically tell you as someone who runs and manages cat one incident rooms under the civil contingencies act there is no rout other than MACA for me to request aid. Now there may be something in MOD and military SOPs that let them voluntarily help if they see a life or limb issue…but civilian services cannot just ask. That is set in stone.

          • James dig down into page 4 section 1.4 and you can see that the quote from the front page is rendered meaningless…basically this is the Military view..it’s not unfortunately the view of other agencies…when the MOD come back to the DOH and say someone in NHS has asked for a MACA without going through the chain of command the shit hits the fan. Not so jointed up I know but unfortunately central government generally never manages to get all the doted line right.

            The issue is basically the MOD charge the DOH for its services time and the DOH will not ever ever allow NHS systems to spend DOH money without going all the way to the top….central control in the DOH and Central NHSE bureaucracy is now at insanely Hi levels since the conservatives came into power…it got to insane levels with the BJ government( I audited the central DOH instructions coming down to local NHS systems during the first six weeks of covid…it was 70+ documents with many thousands of pages..many of which were mutually exclusive and some even illegals).

    • A400M certainly undertakes this role in the Falklands and South Georgia. I was chatting to one of the pilots about it the other day. If Atlas can do it down south then presumably it could do it at home too.

        • Because we only have A400, Voyager and Typhoon based at Mount Pleasant and the latter definitely can’t deploy maritime rescue kit? As for the Atlantic, dropping rescue kit in the middle of an enormous ocean doesn’t seem that crazy a task for a 4 engined aircraft to me. Not that Poseidon isn’t suitable as well of course.

  3. Looks like they can be attached to any of the 5 internal weapons hard points.
    With the 6 external ones it can carry a decent weapons payload. 🤔

    • Pity we don’t have any cruise or anti ship missiles for those hard points or any mines.

      Maybe we can bomb the PLAN with rafts 😀

      • Good thing too that they don’t have anti-ship missiles as we wouldn’t have any Poseidons for long if we had them attacking surface ships!! I’d rather have they pass on co-ordinates to dedicated combat aircraft to attack surface ships.

        Submarines on the other hand don’t generally have anti-aircraft systems but are vulnerable to the torpedoes they carry.

        • Gone are the days the RAF had such dedicated aircraft and Nimrod did have the kit to do so. The NSM the RN are getting would be a worthwhile weapon to have on the P8 and Norway operate the same aircraft so a win win to have a stock of them awaiting a target.

          • Typhoon will be able to operate both JSM and Martre ER

             02/12/2022

            MBDA’s Marte ER missile is under delivery and looking for new customers
            The aircraft version of the NSM is part of the advanced armament of F-35 Lightning II, Eurofighter Typhoon, Gripen and NH90 multipurpose fighters.

          • Typhoon will be able to operate both JSM and Martre ER

            02/12/2022

            MBDA’s Marte ER missile is under delivery and looking for new customers

            “The aircraft version of the NSM is part of the advanced armament of F-35 Lightning II, Eurofighter Typhoon, Gripen and NH90 multipurpose fighters.”

          • Why would you waste money on dedicated aircraft when the RAF have both the Typhoons and F35. They’re going to integrate FC/ASW onto one or other or both.

            We only have 9 P8s, essentially Boeing 737s, so endangering one – along with its large crew – by sending it to attack a ship with an air-defence system is an unreasonable risk to men and resources.
            Let them locate and identify ships and hand-off the actual attack to combat aircraft and drones.

            The RN is getting NSM, not the RAF.
            As far as I’m aware the NSM currently has no air-launch capability and is marketed as a sea/land launched system.

        • Problem is it’s the only air system we operate that currently has anti ship missile capability and a P8 carrying 4 LRASM would likely be the only kind of direct action in a defence of Taiwan operation we could participate in assuming all air bases in range for typhoon would be out of action instantly and it would be too dangerous for our carriers to sail past Singapore. Our submarines would be the only other thing we could send in there.

          US war gaming was pretty clear that the ability to fire large numbers of long range anti ship missiles was the key capability to thwart an invasion of Taiwan. The war games also showed the US may not have enough capacity to do this on its own. British, Australian and other Allie’s with P8 may be able to make a valuable contribution in this regard.

          • That’s on the assumption that the US gets involved with defending Taiwan. I suspect that is pretty unlikely, as the risk to US lives would be significant and so it would not be a popular move domestically. Pretty much in the same way no one got involved in defending Ukraine.

          • Using our P8s like that would be asking for them to be shot down, along with their large crews. Typhoons could do the same job, if necessary by using air refuelling tankers.

            In addition to US forces, the Australian and South Korea would be able to provide plenty of P8s for service. What we have to contribute, which they don’t, is SSNs. I would expect to see Astute’s not aircraft spearheading the U.K. contribution.

            Our carriers wouldn’t need to sail past Singapore to get to the Western Pacific.

          • This might be the answer as well as Tomahawk.

            MBDA

            MdCN- NCM (Naval Cruise Missile) to meet the requirement issued by the French Ministry of Defence for a long-range cruise missile capable of being launched from surface vessels and submarines.

          • The defence of Taiwan is not the responsibility of the UK. I trust the government of the day will stay well clear of such involvement. The military of the UK has more than it can cope with as things stand.

        • Indeed we really really need a fixed wing fast jet ASM. Personal I think it would have been better to have focused getting NSM on our fast jets before our escorts…but it should not have been a one or other question instead a capability for both. I suspect is the RN stumping for NSM and the RAF having other priorities.

          • Both the RAF and RN will get FC/ASW. The RN has changed its mind and has decided it needs a interim off the shelf solution, ie NSM, until FC/ASW arrives.

            It appears the RAF are happy to wait, though they might to decide to get the JSM, when it becomes available, if the FC/ASW is still some way off…

          • As you know, I’ve been calling for this, even before the escorts, for years. It is the fast jet that attacks an enemy vessel before the vessel itself.
            NSM for Land Attack fine on an escort.

          • Thought it’s interesting the Aussies only currently plan on using LRASM on their Super Hornets and not on their P8…

  5. Does anyone know the history as to why some squadrons are listed under “Arabic” numerals and some under “Roman” ?
    I am sure there is some obscure history behind it, so would be intrigued as to what the reason was.
    I open the floor to comments

  7. Nimrod did this decades ago. And could shut down 2 engines if need be.
    I’m surprised the MoD release does not describe it as “world leading” or agile.

  9. A little light reading regards the Uks Poseidon fleetfrom last September. (As usual it will self delete in 7 days)https://i.postimg.cc/N0Kp0wRW/img323.jpg

    • Prepare for an infinite wait.
      P8 = Mk 54
      Apache = JAGM

      Why?
      Because if you buy american systems the integration is so long and costly you end up buying the inferior US system instead because its easier and in the short term cheaper.

  13. Do the liferafts still inflate inverted? on the two occasions I dropped three linked MS10s from a Herc, two out of the three inflated inverted. I never moaned about having to right a liferaft during annual drills after that.

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