Would the Royal Air Force Sentinel fleet be feasible for the USAF?
After more than a decade of operations, who would have thought that the first Battlefield Airborne Communication Node (BACN), being the Bombardier Global 6000 Express derative E-11A N901GX (later becoming USAF serial 11-9001), would since become very valuable for commanders, after its first flight over the Afghanistan theatre in December 2010.
During that time, whilst being deployed to Kandahar Air Base (Afghanistan), and ever since, the E-11A and their Royal Air Force Sentinel R1 ASTOR (Airborne STand-Off Radar) stablemates have flown continuously simultaneously during various operations.
Strikingly, whilst the USAF has recently opted for more BACN E-11As, the UK Ministry of Defence has offered the RAF’s Sentinel R1 ASTOR five-strong fleet for scrapping via its Defence Equipment Sales Authority (DESA). While one Sentinel has been stored now for a while, the other four still fly regularly missions over the Baltic States, Black Sea and Middle East. The first of the type is now scheduled to be retired from RAF service by the end of March 2021.
On 21 January 2021, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC), based at Hanscom AFB (MA), awarded a USD 3.6 billion contract to Northrop Grumman Corp. for operations, sustainment, and support of the BACN. The five-year indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity agreement includes funds for research, development, testing and evaluation, and integration of existing and future BACN payloads.
The contract also provides support for infrastructure contained in or connected to the BACN system and associated ground stations, controls, and ancillary or support equipment for system integration laboratories. That includes seven aircraft carrying the BACN payload on two different platforms with USAF's 430th (Expeditionary) Electronic Combat Squadron: three manned E-11As and four unmanned Global Hawk EQ-4Bs. The past years the USAF has replaced, or certainly has the intention to replace the BACN aircraft that were lost during various crashes and/or accidents. The last one was EQ-4B with serial number 04-2015, a converted RQ-4B, which replaced a crashed example. An additional E-11A replacement for a crashed example has been requested for the US Fiscal Year 2021 budget. See the Scramble Magazines reports of 14 November 2020 and 24 January 2021.
In a surprise move, the BACN Programme Office is working to procure six E-11A aircraft over the next five years. The team has secured additional funding for the first aircraft (see above), and contract negotiations on a purchase agreement are currently in progress for another five. Although having ruled out their suitability for use by another (military) operator at first, the question remains: would the RAF five-strong Sentinel R1s be a feasible addition for the USAF? At this moment it is pure speculation. But analysing the current capacities and remaining airframe hours, how the UK government dealt with the Sentinel in the past and how it could fit in the USAF inventory, this seems conveniently possible.
Time will tell....
A fleet overview of the USAF 430th EECS BACN and RAF 5(AC)Sq Sentinel R1 aircraft:
Photos: David Cook and Dean West (Flickr)