CHAPTER 18

DESERT TORNADOS

Like most Tornado operators between 1991 and the end of the century, I saw a good deal of Saudi Arabia. It all kicked off with the Gulf Conflict. Then, while Saddam Hussein continued to harass the Kurds and Marsh Arabs as well as defying the UN over weapons inspections, there was air policing of both the southern and northern Iraq no-fly zones. By the time this came to a head with the Iraq War of 2003, the Tornado detachment had moved to Kuwait. Later it redeployed to Qatar, and the commitment didn’t finally end until 2009.

During the earlier days of the Saudi mounting bases, I myself twice led the Tornado air policing detachment based at Dhahran during the early 1990s, followed by a stint as commander British Forces Jural based in Riyadh. During those duties I found the country a fascinating place – although by the end of my third unaccompanied detachment, and with ten months in the kingdom under my belt in less than four years, the novelty was beginning to wear off. What I learned in dealing with my Saudi colleagues, however, was to respect their ways, to acknowledge our differences and to ride with them. There was never going to be complete harmony between us, either culturally or professionally. The trick was to recognise each other’s strengths and to find a common way forward rather than to seek a total agreement which would never be there.

One group of people who learned, far more than I did, how to work with the Saudis were the people associated with the BAE Systems (formerly BAe) Al Yamamah contract. The follow-on continues today, with the RSAF now acquiring Typhoons. For a taste of how our people found it to fly and operate with the RSAF I turn to one of my old flight commanders, Rob McCarthy. I flew with him many times at Brüggen and he is, above all, an international man. Having operated with the USMC on an exchange tour, he married an American lady who was one of the USMC’s ‘pen pals’ during the Gulf Conflict – and subsequently emigrated to the States. But in between his RAF and American lives he enjoyed a fascinating period in Saudi Arabia, which he recounts here.

________________________________

SQUADRON LEADER ROB McCARTHY (RETD)

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the largest country, by area, in the Middle East, and the world’s largest producer of oil. It is also home to the two holiest places in Islam, Masjid al Haram (in Mecca), and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (in Medina). Approximately ninety percent of the population (about twenty-eight million) are Sunni Muslims. Defence spending by Saudi Arabia, particularly on modern weapons systems, has increased significantly since 1980, with the RSAF acquiring large numbers of modern combat aircraft (F-15, Tornado and Typhoon) from both the USA and the UK. Saudi Arabia currently ranks fourth in the global defence spending table, behind only the USA, Russia and China. Politically, I believe that the Saudis see much more likelihood of military conflict with its Shia Muslim neighbours (Iran and Yemen) than it does with non-Muslim Middle Eastern countries like Israel.

Saudi Arabia became the fourth country to operate the Tornado following the Al Yamamah 1 arms deal, signed between the British and Saudi governments in 1985. Under this contract, the RSAF would receive forty-eight Tornado IDS aircraft (twenty-eight GR1s, six GR1As, fourteen dual-control trainers), twenty-four Tornado ADVs, thirty Hawk trainers, thirty Pilatus PC-9 trainers, a range of weapons, radar and spares, and an aircrew training programme. In return, the British government was to receive crude oil. BAe, who had been involved in Saudi Arabia since the mid-1960s, was assigned to be the prime contractor. A second phase, Al Yamamah 2, was signed in 1988 for the delivery of a further forty-eight Tornado IDS types.

The IDS aircraft were divided between RSAF Wing 5 at King Khalid Air Base, near Khamis Mushait in the south-west corner of the country and RSAF Wing 11 at King Abdulaziz Air Base, near Dhahran, in the east of the country on the Persian Gulf coast. 7 Squadron in Dhahran acted as the training unit, with 66, 75 and 83 Squadrons as the front-line squadrons.

My involvement with Saudi Arabia began in late 1997. I was serving on the staff of the RAF’s Air Warfare Centre, responsible for helping establish the combined elements of the RAF’s and the RN’s QWI training for the Tornado, Jaguar, Harrier, Sea Harrier and Hawk. This was my first ground tour after six tours in the cockpit (one on the Buccaneer, one on the Dominie as a navigation instructor, one on exchange flying A-6s for the USMC and three on the Tornado). I had tried hard to remain airborne for as long as possible but now, at age forty-two, my future seemed to offer a series of staff jobs of unknown type and location.

So I had pretty much decided to retire from the RAF and move to the US to try my hand at something different. But I had stayed in touch with Mark Allan, who had been with me on 31 Squadron at Brüggen in the mid-1990s and was currently serving on secondment to the RSAF for three years at Dhahran, and he suggested that this might be something I should consider. I talked it over with my wife, Adrienne, and we decided to look into it. BAE Systems invited me for an interview; they seemed to be in need of Tornado QWIs, and the fact that I was not in current flying practice and was likely to retire from the RAF in a year and a half didn’t seem to put them off. So after a four-month attachment to Operation Northern Watch in Turkey, and some negotiation between the RAF and the company, I was seconded as an instructor WSO on 75 Squadron RSAF. My tour in Saudi Arabia would be preceded by an abbreviated Tornado refresher course of four sorties on the TTTE and eight on XV(R) Squadron.

It was good to get back in the cockpit after two and a half years on the ground, and after some initial rustiness I once again felt comfortable in my back seat ‘office’. We moved out of our married quarter and sent our belongings to America, where we had recently bought a house as our ‘base’, only to find that the Saudis had put a temporary hold on new moves into the country. I was in limbo for several weeks while the administrative wheels slowly turned. Finally the word came in September 1998 that I could start in Saudi; I packed my wife and daughter off to the USA and flew to Dhahran.

The Middle East in general and Dhahran in particular were not totally unfamiliar to me. While serving on exchange with the USMC flying the A-6 Intruder I had spent seven months at Sheikh Isa Airfield, Bahrain during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, culminating in thirty-night combat missions over southern Iraq and Kuwait. On the first of these, on 17 January 1991, the strike package included both A-6s and RAF Tornado GR1s attacking a variety of targets in southern Iraq. All the A-6s returned safely to base, but a Tornado from 27 Squadron, which I had recently left, was lost, hitting the ground while exiting the target area. In 1994, like virtually all Germany-based Tornado aircrews up to 1996, I had spent time at Dhahran on Operation Jural, the RAF’ s contribution to Operation Southern Watch (patrolling the southern Iraq no-fly zone). Most of that time was spent as the RAF’s operations coordinator, better known as the ‘warlord’, but I did manage four operational sorties. Following the bombing of coalition accommodation at Khobar Towers in 1996, by the way, Operation Southern Watch was moved on safety and security grounds to Prince Sultan Air Base (Al Kharj) near Riyadh in the centre of the country.

The base at Dhahran is a huge one. When I arrived it was shared with the civilian airport; however, following the opening of King Fahd International, some twenty-five miles north-west of Dhahran, in November 1999, civilian operations moved there.

On joining 75 Squadron I increased the number of expatriate aircrew to six; two instructor pilots, two IWSOs and two mission-planning officers who provided ground support and instruction. The expats were a mix of secondees on loan from the RAF and ex-military people contracted to BAE Systems. The IPs were QFIs while the IWSOs were QWIs, all with considerable Tornado experience. The Saudi squadrons had additional IPs and IWSOs among their own senior aircrew.

The aircraft were virtually identical to RAF GR1s, although with a beefed-up environmental control system to deal better with operations in a hot climate. There were also differences in targeting equipment and weaponry. Instead of the TIALD pod to provide self or cooperative laser target designation, the RSAF used a Thomson pod, which had either TV or IR capabilities depending on the head fitted. For conventional attack, the RSAF used American weapons, typically Mark 82 500-lb bombs, to provide commonality with the weapons carried on their F-15S aircraft.

After a frustratingly slow acceptance period I settled into routine operations. Most sorties made use of the training areas to the south-west of Dhahran and the local air weapons range at Fahad. In my time there, all sorties took off from and landed back at Dhahran. About half of my flying involved work-up training sorties for either new Saudi aircrew, for those moving up to become pairs or four-ship leaders, or for training on other equipment such as ALARM.

The working day was driven by the climate; to avoid the worst of the heat, days would start early (5.30 am in the summer) and finish by 2.30 pm. Summer temperatures were oppressive, with an average high in August of 46°C. So the first wave would crew-in in the cool, pre-dawn light and get airborne shortly after dawn. Tornado operations were not allowed above 50°C; although we made 49°C on several occasions, I never saw that magic fifty. The aircraft were kept in a row of sun shelters in front of the squadron operations building, but even so the temperature out on the concrete ramp could take your breath away.

There were rules on how long we could be out in an unconditioned environment (from leaving the squadron building to having an engine running and the canopy closed with the ECS running). In practice this meant that, unless any pre-start problem could quickly be resolved, it was often impossible to move to a spare aircraft. Summer temperatures at night would only get down to the low thirties and, being so close to the Gulf, humidity was very high. Some fancy domestic compounds had chillers on their pools to make them usable throughout the summer – but not the company’s areas, so our compound pool became uncomfortably hot and unpleasant in mid-summer. In town there was much reduced activity during the heat of the afternoon, similar to Mediterranean siesta time, with shops and restaurants coming to life again in the evening. Many of the wives and children would return to the UK during the summer school break to avoid the most unpleasant period.

On one training sortie our aircraft suffered an air-conditioning failure when we were operating out in the training areas to the south-west of Dhahran. Repeated attempts to reset the system were unsuccessful, forcing us to transit slowly to Dhahran with no cabin cooling. You can get some feeling of what it was like if you can imagine parking your car out in the desert under a scorching sun with the windows closed and no ventilation. About halfway back my Saudi pilot radioed to squadron operations requesting that we be met with ice cream. On opening the canopy after landing safely it was like being hit in the face with a blast of cold air – even though that air was probably close to 50°C.

Another major weather factor affecting our lives was the shamal, a strong north-westerly wind blowing from the desert. It would occur a couple of times per year, bringing dust and sand in from the desert and causing poor visibility. During the worst of a shamal, flying operations were impractical, and even once the wind died down the amount of fine dust in the atmosphere could form a layer up to 10,000 feet. Then, as it settled out of the atmosphere, a very fine film of dust would coat everything in its path.

The flying routine was also built around the requirements and calendar of the Islamic faith. It is impossible to understate the importance of religion in Saudi Arabia; it is not just part of people’s lives but drives everything that happens in the country. The routine working week was from Saturday to Wednesday; Friday is the Islamic Sabbath, with the weekend comprising Thursday and Friday. Even on working days, activity is scheduled around the five daily mandatory prayer times, Fajr (pre-dawn), Dhuhr (midday), Asr (afternoon), Maghrib (sunset) and Isha (night). The times vary from day to day according to the position of the sun, and are between twenty and forty minutes long depending on which prayer it is. Aircrew have a royal waiver to allow them to fly during prayer time, but all non-essential ground activity stops while the crews pray. They would often head for the mosque, but we westerners grew used to sometimes arriving at a jet for a sortie to find the ground crew praying on mats underneath the aircraft. Domestically, one always drove with a prayer schedule in the car to avoid getting to a shop or restaurant and finding it closed for prayers.

On an annual basis, Ramadan and Hajj significantly affect squadron operations. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, the month of fasting. The start of Ramadan and its duration, twenty-nine or thirty days, are based on visual sightings of the crescent moon. Fasting by adults, to include food, drink and smoking, is practised from dawn until sunset. Expatriate aircrew would normally be assigned a room where we could get a cup of coffee without being seen by Saudi colleagues. But during Ramadan, Saudi aircrew have a royal waiver to permit them, also, to minimally break their fast so that they are able to fly very simple sorties to maintain currency. These would comprise a TF route, which would require the pilot to take off, engage the TFR and autopilot, monitor the system for the duration of the route, and then resume manual control for a straight-in approach to land. For the holiday of Eid al-Fitr that immediately follows Ramadan, flight operations would be suspended, with expatriate aircrew being encouraged to take vacation out of the country.

Hajj is the second of the two annual religious events affecting squadron operations. The Hajj is the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca and occurs from the eighth to the twelfth day of the last month of the Islamic calendar. The calendar being based on the lunar year, Hajj, like Ramadan, moves forward each year by about eleven days on the Gregorian calendar used in the west. As with Eid al-Fitr, operations ceased during Hajj and expatriate aircrew generally took vacation.

Flying training was more prescriptive than one would find on an RAF front-line squadron, with most training sorties following a ‘route of the day’ through the training areas. This came partly from a desire to avoid conflictions at low level; at home we tended to rely more on ‘see and be seen’ principles.

Of course the predominantly flat and empty desert didn’t help to add variety or interest to the sorties. Realistic targets on which to run practice attacks were few and far between. The major oilfield areas, with their associated infrastructure, would have offered ideal simulated targets – but understandably they were off limits. Quality and accuracy of the mapping available to us was dubious, making target and attack offset selection difficult. It was not uncommon to miss a practice target simply because it was not where it was shown to be on the map. The Tornado navigation system was extremely accurate, but if the mapping wasn’t even good enough to get the aircraft within radar range, things were difficult.

Some variety to the normal training routine was provided every couple of months by composite sorties involving multiple aircraft types from Dhahran’s two flying Wings. These would typically include Tornados in the attack and/or SEAD role, supported by F-15S aircraft in a fighter sweep and/or attack role, with the opposition comprising F-15C fighters. Both sides would be supported by E-3 AWACS aircraft based near Riyadh. Less frequent were long-range sorties with other RSAF bases as targets, Khamis Mushait, Tabuk, etc. These sorties required AAR support which, in the RSAF, is provided by KC-130s. This is basically a standard C-130 fitted with two underwing refuelling pods similar to those used on RAF tankers. Because of the KC-130’s performance, AAR was conducted much lower (8,000 to 15,000 feet) and slower (210 knots) than is normal with a jet tanker like a VC10. The slow speed meant that the Tornado had to be configured with mid flap; additionally, the low altitude could put us in more turbulent air making smooth contact with the refuelling basket more difficult on occasions.

Contract personnel join Rob McCarthy (second from right) following his last trip with the RSAF.

RSAF aircrews began their training with schooling in both English and technical subjects at the King Faisal Air Academy near Riyadh, before moving to flight training. Pilots trained initially on a basic trainer before moving onto the Pilatus PC-9 and Hawk. WSOs went to the USA where they were trained at NAS Pensacola in Florida, which handled training for USAF and USN back-seaters destined for tactical aircraft as well as for a variety of foreign air forces. Saudi WSOs destined for Tornado IDS continued their training at Dhahran on a Jetstream equipped with Tornado avionics. Pilots and WSO training then converged on 7 Squadron at Dhahran, where they underwent Tornado conversion before joining a front-line squadron. In the early days of RSAF Tornado operations, experienced pilots from other aircraft types, like the F-5, had been converted onto the Tornado in the UK at the TWCU. Indeed, my squadron commander when I arrived, Colonel Sofyani, remembered me from his training at RAF Honington, which coincided with my time on the QWI course. At that time I’d been way too busy to take much interest in the Saudi pilots, and in any case they’d largely kept themselves to themselves.

Training on a complex aircraft like the Tornado, when English is not your first language, is difficult. As instructors, we needed to try to break things down into more digestible pieces. Expecting them to understand the aircrew manual to the same level or depth as someone in the RAF was not realistic. It follows that it made sense to deal with in-flight procedures or emergencies more slowly than back home; the pedantic approach was, in the circumstances, the most effective and the safest. Fairly naturally, with a western instructor on board, the Saudi crew member would tend to let him handle most things and to give direction. All in all, then, while flying with the Saudis was certainly different, I wouldn’t attempt to make any comparison with western standards. Differences in language, training, culture, experience and so on were so great that it simply wouldn’t be fair.

During my time there, few of the aircrew had any operational experience. The squadron commander and his deputy were the only crewmembers who had been flying the Tornado long enough to have been involved in Desert Storm, and it was not something they discussed. They were both pilots, which leads me to mention that the relationship between Saudi pilots and WSOs was a little different to that found in the RAF. At home, back and front-seaters are essentially viewed as being equal, with an RAF squadron commander just as likely to be a navigator as a pilot. I did not see this in the RSAF, where virtually all of the squadron’s senior people were pilots.

Saudi combat operations have never been a part of the expat crewmember’s job specification. And as westerners, we were not expected to mix socially with the Saudi aircrew, so our social life revolved around the BAE Systems people and facilities. Western aircrew would sometimes be invited to lunch with their Saudi colleagues, when we’d sit on the floor and eat meat and rice using the right hand only – it’s considered unclean to use the left hand. One exception was the wedding reception of one of the squadron pilots. There were actually two receptions, one for the men and one for the women, as mixing of the sexes is not allowed. The men’s reception was fairly staid and unremarkable, but what surprised me was that the wives reported the girls’ reception to be lively, going on long into the night.

Domestically, the Eastern Province, where Dhahran is located, was not a bad place to live. As the centre of the oil industry it was probably the most western-friendly area of Saudi Arabia. Western men and women were both required to dress conservatively in public, but this didn’t mean that the girls had to completely cover up or wear a veil. The activities of the mutawwah, the religious police, seemed to be relatively unobtrusive compared to those in some other areas of the country, and I cannot recall any problems with them.

The fact that we had a very predictable working schedule, would be home every night, and were free from the usual tempo of frequent and extended operational deployments, made a pleasant change for both me and my family, though I did miss the variety and challenges of life on a front-line RAF squadron. BAE Systems personnel were, and still are, housed in compounds, mostly in the town of Al Khobar. Those compounds are surrounded by high walls and may only be entered through a single security entrance. They have up to a hundred ‘villas’, along with central administrative and recreational facilities – pool, gym, and so on. Within the compound walls, western rules apply in terms of dress code and customs. This ‘controlled’ situation seemed to suit all parties, including the host nation and the company, quite well, and we were careful to respect the territorial limits of the compound. For if you were caught taking the ‘wrong’ western habits outside the walls you were on your own and could not expect any help from the company. Along with the facilities on the compound, the company had access to a beach facility on Half Moon Bay, a few miles to the south of the base, for swimming and sailing.

Families were allowed to join us after about three months, and after some initial worries about differences from life at home, seemed to settle well into the life. Wives, bar some small jobs helping to run facilities on the compound, were not able to work, and therefore had more leisure time than is often the case at home. As expats, we were expected to employ a houseboy. These individuals, as with other manual workers in Saudi Arabia, were typically third world nationals from Pakistan, Indonesia, or the like, who were trying to earn enough money to support their families at home. These houseboys performed a variety of domestic tasks at very reasonable rates. I suspect that my wife was typical in enjoying having the mundane housework done by someone else; she wishes, I’m sure, that such an affordable luxury was available back home today!

Personal security, especially where families were concerned, was always in the back of your mind when living in Saudi Arabia. To a large extent we felt safe living there; the housing compounds offered a degree of security, while we felt comfortable in the shops and restaurants in town. Indeed Adrienne felt safer browsing the shops in Al Khobar in the evening than she does doing the same thing in the small town in the USA in which we now live. Most of the locals were friendly and were happy to see a western family with a young daughter out in the town. However, there was always the knowledge that there were a few ‘crazies’ out there. Nothing unpleasant happened during my three years in the country, but some years after we left there was a terrorist attack on a residential compound in Al Khobar in which twenty-two people, mostly third world manual workers, were killed. It was close to a company residential compound, one we had visited during our stay.

A year into my tour, my time in the RAF came to an end and I changed from being seconded to BAE Systems to being a contract officer. This made no effective difference, even my pay and allowances remaining unchanged. My wife and I had always planned to do three years in Saudi and then to move to her home town in the USA to live, so in mid-July 2001 I flew my last sortie, not only for this tour of duty, but also my last sortie in the Tornado and the last sortie of my career. I flew with one of the more senior pilots on the squadron, leading a four-ship around the local training areas and through Fahad range for some academic weaponry.

Since my departure, the Saudis have continued to operate their Tornados and have engaged in an upgrade programme for the seventy-five or so aircraft that remain in service. The ‘Tornado sustainment programme’ is intended to keep the aircraft in service until 2020 and to bring the fleet up to a standard similar to the current RAF GR4. With all Tornados now based at Dhahran, the Khamis Mushait operation has been handed over to the F-15S. The Sea Eagle anti-ship missile and the ALARM anti-radiation missile have been withdrawn from service, and contracts signed for new weapons systems such as the short-range air-to-air IRIS-T missile, Paveway IV bombs with dual GPS and laser guidance, Brimstone and Storm Shadow. The original laser designation pod has been replaced by the French Damocles targeting pod.

Having flown 650 missions during Operation Desert Storm, RSAF Tornados went on to participate in 2009 in operations against the Shia insurgency in Yemen. More recently, I think it likely that the aircraft have been in action, again in Yemen, in 2015. I feel privileged to have spent time flying what I consider to be a great aircraft, with some great people, in a variety of training and operational environments. My Saudi experience was a fascinating time, and my last Tornado sortie was a sad day for me. Even nearly fourteen years later, I still miss the aircraft.