(Written in May 2012, published in NZ Aviation News: http://aviationnews.co.nz/july1203.html)
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| RAF fighters at Northolt, again |
In London, with the Olympic Games fast
approaching, the Royal Air Force and other UK armed forces have been preparing
their response to aerial threats with a series of exercises and deployments
around the capital.
Since 2001, air defence against potential
9/11-type threats has been de rigueur at major
sporting and political events. The first to see fighter patrols seems to have
been the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, and since then, the host nation
has protected the airspace of every Olympics, World Cup, Euro soccer
tournament, G8 meeting and World Economic Forum, adding hugely to the security
bill.
One of the few events to have no air
defence was the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.
With the Olympics less than 100 days away
and even the contestants in the recent Mayoral election agreeing that London
was the biggest terrorist target in the world, Olympics or not, it was
inevitable that the UK military would be a large part of the security plan.
Northolt is famous for its role in the
Battle of Britain and for the Polish-manned squadrons that flew in 1940-42, but
it seems to not have operated combat aircraft since September 1944 when 140
Squadron’s Mosquitoes moved to Normandy. From then on it was largely a base for
transport and communications aircraft, including the Royal Flight. Today it is
home to No. 32 Squadron with BAe 125s and 146s and AgustaWestland AW109s for
VIP transport, as well as the secretive Station Flight, whose Britten-Norman
Islanders are often seen orbiting London, purportedly intercepting cell phone
calls and observing with various electro-optical devices as part of regular
non-Olympic anti-terrorism efforts.
A media facility for the arrival of the
first fighters to be based at Northolt for 68 years allowed some questions to
be asked about the air policing of the Olympics themselves. The Typhoons will
be kept on a high state of ground readiness or Quick Reaction Alert (QRA)
rather than a continuous CAP (combat air patrol), although that posture may be
adapted during the games in light of the threat assessment. The only flights
are likely to be aircraft swap-overs, so any Typhoon flights are likely to be
“real events of some level” said Air Vice-Marshall Stu Atha, the man in charge
of the air security, who also joked: “I never thought I’d be representing the
Royal Air Force at the Olympics”.
The noise issue was acknowledged, but short
take-offs would help reduce the footprint. The noise was said to be comparable
with a Gulfstream V, which is debatable to say the least, your correspondent
feels, and he could certainly hear them take off from his house, nearly 10 km
away as the Eurofighter flies.
Olympic Guardian was designed to test the
integration of layered air defence elements, consisting of much more than just
a section of fighters. The normal civil and military radars will be backed up
by a mobile Type 101 radar unit and a trailer-based control centre somewhere in
London, as well as E-3D Sentry AWACS and Sea King Mk 7 airborne radars. For
anything that evades these, teams of three personnel with binoculars will be
deployed around the capital, shades of the Royal Observer Corps, which was
disbanded in 1995.
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| Sea King Mk 7 |
Although plans to base one or more Type 45
destroyers on the Thames and in the English Channel seem to have been quietly
dropped since they were proposed last year, perhaps because their Sea Viper
missiles are not yet considered operationally ready, two sorts of
surface-air-missiles were displayed to the press at Shooter’s Hill overlooking
Greenwich, site of the equestrian events. The Rapier is a trailer-mounted
radar-guided system with a range of about 5km, and batteries may be deployed
along a north-south line crossing the Olympic Park in London’s east end. The
more portable Starstreak HVM (high velocity missile) might wind up on water
towers and blocks of flats across east London, including the 17-storey Fred
Wigg Tower in Waltham Forest, which has a wide view over the Olympic Park and
much of east London. Unsurprisingly, residents are a touch concerned about
becoming a SAM site, and some only found out about this possibility during
Olympic Guardian when uniformed men with boxes were encountered on the stairs.
The perceived militarisation of the games
and the growing security bill, estimated now at £1 billion has caused
predictable grumbles, but in the modern era If all the above fails, we can’t
rely on Team GB’s clay pigeon shooters as the final line of defence.
Everyone from the Defence Secretary on down
says there are “No specific threats” to the games. AVM Atha told reporters that
no single measure has utility against all potential threats and that the
measures planned were against the worst-case scenario, not necessarily the most
likely. Potential threats fall into two categories, “regulated” and
“unregulated”. The first include airliners and general aviation aircraft, and
the latter radio control aircraft, improvised unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
and who knows what else. An army Lieutenant Colonel at a meeting to assure
residents of one potential missile battery told them that the threat could come
from lash-up unmanned vehicles carrying poison, launched at the stadium from
within the same inner suburbs. Another artillery officer stressed that the
missile deployment was only a test and that any decision to actually base them
during the games was yet to be taken.
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| A Lynx launches from Ocean |
Not to be left out, the Royal Navy also
played its part when the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean sailed to Greenwich, squeezing through the Thames Barrier flood
defences with little room to spare. On board were landing craft, speedboats and
helicopters, which conducted exercises up and down the river against simulated
wayward boats and aircraft. Aboard were four Army Air Corps Lynx helicopters
carrying snipers tasked with targeting low slow flyers, and four Royal Navy
Lynx with Royal Marine snipers looking for suspicious river traffic.
One landing craft was spotted carrying an LRAD
or long-range acoustic device, also called a ‘pain ray’, although the MoD says
they will only use it for its loud hailer capabilities.
The exercise concluded after 10 days and
everything flew, sailed or drove away until July, except the hangars and arrestor
gear at Northolt. The Defence Secretary said the idea was that the military
would now “fade into the background” and “not dominate the games”.
When the games themselves roll around, GA
pilots better familarise themselves with the changed airspace. The advice
leaflet being distributed to aero clubs says: “Deviation
from R112 – the Restricted Zone Rules, or Violation of P111 – the Prohibited
Zone will result in Interception.”
Wayward light aircraft may be intercepted
by Typhoons, which will rock wings and break left to right in front, firing
flares if necessary. Crew in Puma and Lynx helicopters will hold up a ‘Follow
Me’ sign, fire flares or shine lasers to get the pilot’s attention (something
which is usually frowned upon in aviation). The appropriate response in every
instance is to rock your wings, follow the interceptor and turn away from
London. Radio failure procedures are to stay out of the Restricted Zone. What
happens if a pilot still bimbles on his merry way is not spelled out, but can be
imagined.
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| Presumably they don't mean on Twitter |
The standard QRA loadout for a Typhoon is
four radar-guided AMRAAM missiles, four infrared ASRAAMs and a 27mm Mauser
cannon. The cannon, which contrary to legend, is actually fitted to British
Eurofighters, has not actually been cleared for use in the air-to-air role by
the RAF yet. The Northolt
detachment commander Squadron Leader Gordy Lovett said the Typhoon force hoped
to do some air-to-air firing before the games.
The Pumas, based in a tiny Territorial Army
centre to the east of the Olympic stadium will carry RAF Regiment snipers.
Royal Marine snipers will be on the Lynxes flying off HMS Ocean, backed up with 0.50-calibre machine-guns.
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| The shotgun on right should deter any Jihadi R/C modellers |
Since 2001, no-one has shot down an intruder
over an event, and these measures can be seen more as an (expensive) deterrent
than likely to be used for real, but it doesn’t mean potential threats are not
taken seriously. Something of a stir was caused in April when one of two
Typhoons sent to investigate a helicopter somewhere near Bath went supersonic,
rattling windows across the West Midlands and southwest England and convincing
many there had been an earthquake (rare, but not unknown in the UK). The
miscreant was a civilian Gazelle returning from a day at the races whose pilot
had inadvertently squawked the code for a hijack.
In July and August undoubtedly the RAF will
scramble at least once to steer away someone who can’t read a NOTAM. The
chances of any of the massed firepower arrayed around being used for real over
London are extraordinarily remote.
Nonetheless, as one of the lucky ones to
secure tickets for an athletics session I hope that all that crosses the sky
that August evening is Valerie Adams’ shot put on its way to a gold medal.
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| 11 Squadron Typhoon |
Note: Since the above was written, the Games have begun, the Typhoons, helicopters, missiles and HMS Ocean have returned to London under the banner 'Op Olympics'. Another media event was held and I also visited Ocean herself at Greenwich. The skies have been mostly quiet, although the Typhoons have launched a couple of times, once to check out a BBJ owned by a US basketball team somewhere off the south coast that probably had the wrong radio switches selected.
Note 2: Valerie Adams won the Silver medal on the night, and the only other things airborne were pole vaulters and a TV helicopter. A week later, she was awarded the Gold when the Belarussian competitor was disqualified for a failed drugs test
Note 2: Valerie Adams won the Silver medal on the night, and the only other things airborne were pole vaulters and a TV helicopter. A week later, she was awarded the Gold when the Belarussian competitor was disqualified for a failed drugs test
