The art of air navigation becomes a science.
This writer was trained as a navigator in 1960, but the equipment he used and the techniques he was taught would have been very familiar to his predecessor of 1943. He flew in a Varsity, which could fairly be described as a ‘tin Wellington’. The basic method of navigation in vogue was still the mechanical air plot, using an API Mk 1, with reversion to manual procedures as and when required. The primary fixing aid was still GEE. The aircraft was equipped with a drift sight and position lines could be obtained via an astro-compass or a Mk 9A Bubble Sextant. Radio bearings could be coaxed from a GEC radio compass, as could CONSOL counts, but in the latter case better results could be obtained by using the Marconi R1155 radio receiver at the signaller’s station. Ranges from EUREKA beacons could be read off the REBECCA oscilloscope, the same display being used in its BABS mode to practise airfield approaches. All of this equipment was of wartime vintage, the radio dating from as early as 1940.
The 1960s was a decade of change, however, and when the newly qualified navigator was assigned to an operational role, he would more than likely find that his aeroplane was equipped with a Doppler radar which measured drift and groundspeed. Since heading and airspeed were already known, the availability of Doppler meant that the navigator could always calculate the direction and speed of the local wind. In other words, from the 1960s onwards, since the navigator (nearly) always knew the dimensions of all three sides of the triangle of velocities, he had a permanent solution to the problem which his predecessors had spent much of their time trying to solve.
In much the same way as the API had been used to resolve airspeed around the aircraft’s heading to provide an indication of the aeroplane’s notional position in still air, it was now possible to resolve the output of the Doppler radar around heading in a Ground Position Indicator (GPI) which provided a read out of the actual (strictly speaking, computed) position of the aircraft. As a result, the air plot technique, which had provided the basis of air navigation since before WW II, was replaced by the track plot.
Although they suffered from certain limitations, the first-generation of Doppler radars introduced a remarkable improvement in the accuracy of navigation. This is a GREEN SATIN Mk 2 (ARI 5951) with its associated GPI Mk 4 as fitted in a late-1960s era V-bomber.
Although they suffered from certain limitations, the first-generation of Doppler radars (GREEN SATIN and BLUE SILK) were remarkably accurate. The greatest source of error within the overall system arose from the heading which was still being taken from a magnetic compass, albeit a distant reading model. So, while an automatic track plot was much more convenient and easier to interpret, like the air plot, its overall accuracy decayed with time and it was still necessary to obtain fixes against which to reset the GPI. Thus, while the overall accuracy of navigation had been substantially improved, the navigator’s workload had been only marginally reduced.
In much the same timeframe, GEE was being superseded by TACAN, a system which provided range and bearing from any one of a large number of ground beacons which were being deployed world-wide. Although GEE was being withdrawn, other wartime systems (like LORAN) which operated on broadly similar, ie hyperbolic, principles, were still available while others were being introduced. Some of these (like DECCA) were far more accurate while others (like OMEGA) provided far greater coverage. Furthermore, intensive development of the H2S radar of WW II had eventually created a system which was able to provide the V-bombers with fixes to a notional accuracy of better than 400 yards.
The RAF gained its first experience of inertial navigation in the 1960s via the BLUE STEEL missile. This one is being carried by a Vulcan B.2, XM572, of the Scampton Wing. (CPRO HQ Bomber Command)
Above – The rearward-facing navigation station in a Vulcan B2, circa 1963, Nav (Radar) on the left, Nav (Plotter) on the right.; the back end of a Victor looked much the same. This picture shows only two-thirds of the instrument panel, the section belonging to the AEO being illustrated on page 314. This aeroplane was equipped to carry BLUE STEEL so there were further displays to do with the missile beneath the hinged lid of the plotter’s desk. Displays such as these represented the ultimate in analogue computing but the system was prone to partial failures. The navigators could compensate for these but with so many dials to be monitored and manual controls to be manipulated, one can see why it took two men to handle the system effectively. Once the requirement for bombing had been deleted, however, it became feasible to dispense with one of the navigators in the Victors employed solely as air-to-air refuellers. (British Aerospace) Below – The availability of the microchip has permitted cumbersome analogue navigation and bombing computers to be replaced by lightweight, digitally-processed, solid-state devices which have introduced entirely new standards of accuracy, reliability and flexibility. This picture shows the navigator’s station in a Tornado GR4 of the 1990s. Clearly, it was still a very busy place but, compared to the rear crew compartment of a V-bomber, it is equally clear that it was now possible for one man to do what it had taken three to do in the 1950s. (BAE Systems, Warton)
The RAF also gained its first operating experience with inertial navigation during the 1960s. Developed as the guidance system for the BLUE STEEL stand-off bomb, it was required to be accurate only for the relatively brief duration of its free flight, which presupposed that it would be working from a precise datum when the missile was released. This was achieved by combining the short-term accuracy of the missile’s inertial navigation system (INS) with the longterm accuracy of the Doppler radar in the mother aircraft and resolving the resultant velocities around the very accurate heading output of the inertial platform, positional information being periodically updated by H2S radar fixes. For its time, this was an extremely accurate system and it was totally self-contained, requiring no inputs from any external sources.
By the 1970s navigators undergoing basic training were being taught to handle Doppler radar and analogue computers, like the GPI Mk 4, from the outset. Needless to say, by that time the ‘sharp end’ of the Service had moved on, leaving the training system still a generation in arrears. Any self-respecting combat aeroplane, from the Phantom to the Nimrod, was now equipped with a digital computer fed with very accurate velocities, typically derived from a hybrid system incorporating both inertial and Doppler inputs. Updated by radar fixes and fully integrated with the autopilot and attack systems, such a computer was capable of guiding an aeroplane around a route and providing its crew with accurate weapon-aiming data. At the same time, it could be expected to have sufficient spare capacity to calculate instant answers to practically any navigational problem that the crew chose to set, eg heading, distance, elapsed time and fuel required to reach a diversion.
While traditionalists could still find a use for their old Dalton computers for a while, they were finally rendered obsolete by the advent of the Tornado for which even flight planning facilities were computerised. Since a late-model Doppler/inertial system provided both a precise heading reference and very accurate velocities, the only remaining scope for improvement lay in fixing. This loophole was finally closed by the introduction of the satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS) which is capable of locating a receiver within a matter of yards. In fact, it is no longer simply a question of locating the aeroplane so much as that part of the aeroplane in which the GPS receiver happens to have been installed.
It could be argued that it might be unwise to rely too heavily on the use of satellites because such systems are vulnerable to enemy action (they can be locally jammed and/or ‘spoofed’) and to such random influences as Sun spot activity. On the other hand, GPS provides only the ultimate refinement in positional accuracy, the icing on the cake. So long as it knows its position at the start of a mission, ie the precise geographic co-ordinates and the alignment of its dispersal or hardened aircraft shelter, the error accumulated during a sortie by a state of the art INS, which requires no external ref-erence whatsoever, is measured in yards, not miles. Furthermore, the three-dimensional mapping databases which can be loaded into a modern navigational computer are now so accurate that they can be used both to navigate and to fly at low level on autopilot in the dark and/or in cloud by comparing radar altimeter returns with the stored information on the terrain profile.1 Such systems are also self-contained and more or less unjammable, short of using nuclear weapons to rearrange the landscape and/or to release a pulse of energy intense enough to disrupt the computer’s circuitry.
Under the circumstances, by the late 1980s it was becoming difficult to foresee a situation in which a crew might have to revert to the relatively primitive manual techniques of yesteryear. In other words, the traditional ‘navigator’ was rapidly becoming redundant. The extent to which this was true varied, but the RAF was already operating aeroplanes (like the TriStar) entirely without navigators in roles in which they would have been considered essential only a few years earlier. Furthermore, because navigation was now hyper-accurate and largely computer-based, even where they were being retained, few navigators needed to devote much time to establishing their aeroplane’s position. During an operational sortie, the back-seater in an early 21st Century attack aircraft will concentrate relatively briefly on the aiming and delivery of whatever weapons his aeroplane is carrying, spending most of his time monitoring and operating the array of warning and defensive systems carried by his aircraft.
It could be argued that this represents a full turn of the wheel, as this was pretty much what the observer of 1918 used to do.
2000. A rose by any other name – the introduction of the WSO and WSOp.
A backward glance to WW II reveals the emergence of a curious discontinuity in the employment patterns of RAF back-seaters which continued to be reflected in their functions more or less permanently. Bomber and Coastal Commands had always operated large aeroplanes equipped with increasingly sophisticated devices, but, despite being in the same air force, they tended to employ some of their nonpilot aircrew in very different ways.
Within the wartime Bomber Command H2S radar had been installed at the navigator’s station. When it had first been introduced, exclusively within the Pathfinder Force, it had been regarded as a navigational aid but it soon began to be used to assist in bombing. Early target-marking crews sometimes included a second air bomber, or a Nav(B), to act as ‘set operator’, although the addition of an ‘eighth man’ was not universal and relatively short-lived. This was not the case in Main Force squadrons when they too eventually received H2S, although, even here it would often be operated by the air bomber. In its much developed form H2S served as both navigation aid and ‘bomb sight’ in the V-bombers where it was operated by the navigator (radar).
Evolution had followed a very different path in the maritime world where radar had been introduced to supplement the ‘Mk 1 eyeball’ in the detection of submarines and surface vessels. Since it was a piece of electronic equipment, responsibility for it had been given to the WOp/AG who had passed it on, via the WOM/AG, the WOM(air) and WOp(air) and the air signaller, to the AEO/AEOp.
By the early 1970s Bomber and Coastal Commands had become mere groups within Strike Command. Despite this nominal unification, however, they had adhered to their traditional operating procedures which resulted in some curious contradictions. For instance, while a sergeant AEOp could operate the ASV Mk 21 radar in a Shackleton, the H2S Mk 9A in a Victor was the exclusive preserve of a commissioned navigator. Conversely, the AEO in a Nimrod was a screen-watcher, whereas his counterpart in a Vulcan was not.
In this respect, at least, the division between the functions associated with different aircrew categories had become a trifle blurred. At the same time, the divergence between individuals within the same nominal trade had become increasingly marked so that the navigator of, say, a VC10, had very little in common with his namesake in a Buccaneer. This is of no great significance, of course; after all, a pilot is a pilot, whether he flies a helicopter, a long-haul freighter or a fast jet. It followed that there was little justification for differentiating between different types of navigator or AEO.
This point could be stretched to the extent that it could even be argued that there was actually no need even to differentiate between navigators and AEOs. Indeed, in 1955, in the context of the forthcoming V-bombers, some consideration had been given to the idea of broadening the terms of reference of navigators to produce an all-purpose back-seater (see page 308). Had this proposal been adopted at the time the AEO would have been stillborn. Thereafter, the idea of the multi-disciplined crewman resurfaced from time to time, notably in 1978, and again in 1983, when it was informally suggested that pilot-practice might usefully be imposed upon most of the remaining non-pilot categories. It was proposed that navigators, AEOs and AEOps should be merged into a single category to be known as, perhaps, T actical Co-ordinators or Systems Operators – or even Observers! These proposals served to fuel some lively discussions2 but ‘the establishment’ declined to be drawn and there was no official public response. It was inevitable that, in the course of these debates, the idea of a twin-winged badge would be dusted off yet again, only to provoke an equally predictable defensive reaction from the traditionalists.
Like the idea of a single executive gradation list, which had been around for at least thirty years before it was actually introduced (see pages 336-338), the idea of merging non-pilot categories (or at least standardising on a single badge) was not new, having first been suggested at least as early as 1943.3 Nevertheless, while the great and good of the air force community appeared to have shown little interest in merging categories in 1978-83, it seems that a seed may have been sown. Twenty years later it was to germinate and in August 2000 the Air Force Board Standing Committee announced that the navigator, AEO, AEOp and air signaller specialisations were to be combined.4 In future, they were to be known as Weapons Systems Officers or Operators (WSO/WSOp), depending upon whether or not they were commissioned. When details of the new arrangements were first publicised it was anticipated that the new trade structure would be introduced in the autumn of 2001.5
2003 onwards. The Weapons Systems Operator.
In the event the first WSOps did not graduate as such until May 2003 by which time further refinements to the system had been incorporated. For instance, the differences between the old-style ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ AEOps were now formally recognised under the designations WSOp (acoustics) and WSOp (electronic warfare) while the successors to No 51 Sqn’s erstwhile air signallers had become WSOps (linguist). The air loadmaster had also been absorbed into the new structure as, unsurprisingly, the WSOp (air loadmaster) although in 2005 this was changed to WSOp (crewman). By that time, these four specialisations within the WSOp category had become the only options available to newly recruited non-commissioned aircrew (NCA),6 the last ‘E’-badged air engineers having graduated with No 208 Course on 6 December 2002.7
The situation changed again in 2011 when it was announced that the training of WSO (navigators), WSOps (acoustics) and WSOps (electronic warfare) was to cease, and that the Dominie was to be withdrawn from service (see page 355). This announcement had recognised that there would still be a requirement for some WSOp training, and it included a marker that if this were to require any airborne time it would be provided by Cranwell’s No 45(R) Sqn.
The sequence currently (2013) followed by all new WSOps involves recruit training at Halton, the OACTU’s NCA Initial Training Course at Cranwell and a twelve-week, ground-based, WSOp Generic Course with No 45(R) Sqn. WSOp (crewmen) earmarked for helicopters then move on to gain their flying badges with Shawbury’s DHFS while those destined for fixed-wing remain at Cranwell for another twenty weeks, including flight time in the King Air. After the generic course, WSOp (linguists) receive their specialist training at the Defence Intelligence and Security Centre at Chicksands before returning to Cranwell for a short course, including some air experience, flying badges finally being presented at Waddington after further role-related training. At the time of writing it was anticipated that training of WSOps to fly as sensor operators in the Sentry and/or Sentinel might soon become an additional option.
The withdrawal of the Dominie in 2011 was accompanied by an undertaking that, should there be a requirement to provide any airborne time for future non-pilot aircrew it would be provided by the King Airs of No 45(R) Sqn. (Leone Creese)
2003. The last new aircrew badge?
It was inevitable that the merging of aircrew categories announced in 2000 would raise questions over the retention of the old ‘N’, ‘AE’ and ‘S’ badges, all of which would clearly be too specific for the new, 21st Century, nominally jack-of-all-trades back-seaters. It was decided, therefore, to introduce a completely new badge but, perhaps wisely, in view of the reluctance of old hands to give up their ‘O’s in the past, it was agreed that anyone who was already entitled to wear one of the current emblems would have the option of continuing to do so.
The new badge was to take the form of a single-winged ‘RAF’ monogram set within a laurel wreath and surmounted by a crown. While this addressed concerns first raised by the rank and file as long ago as 1942, in that it conferred a token of royal approval and actually identified the wearer as being a member of the RAF (see page 271), it was evident that the Service was still unable to countenance anyone but a pilot wearing two wings.
Although the new badge had been announced in 2000, there was a three-year hiatus before it was actually introduced. This delay had provided the Air Force Board with ample opportunity to reconsider its decision and to demonstrate its commitment to its half-century-old ‘comparable careers for navigators’ policy by authorising a pilot-style, twin-winged badge for their successors. While the RFC’s generals of 1915 (may have) had some grounds for regarding observers as being less important than pilots, the Bailhache Committee of 1916 had concluded that this had been a misconception. Since the RFC had clearly gone in the wrong direction, relatively few air forces (including the RNAS) had opted to follow its lead and practically all of those which did have subsequently abandoned the blatantly discriminatory half-badge. It was very late in the day, but 2003 was not too late for the RAF to have acknowledged that its retention of the single-wing had always been more to do with bias than with tradition. The RAF of the 21st Century really ought to have stopped trying to imply that its professional non-pilot aircrew were anything less than fully fledged. Sadly, the reigning (100% pilot) Air Force Board proved to be just as obdurate and/or unenlightened as its predecessors and it perpetuated the single wing, the first example being presented to Sgt S Pilkington at a graduation ceremony held at the Defence Helicopter Flying School at Shawbury on 9 May 2003.
The WSO badge was originally to have been introduced in the autumn of 2001 but the date was put back to the spring of 2003.
In recent years, successive administrations have spoken enthusiastically of ‘transparency’ and ‘open government’ and even of ‘freedom of information’ legislation, but little of this ethos seems to have percolated down to the Ministry of Defence. As a result, presumably, of a perceived risk to national security, we may well have to wait until 2020 (assuming that the relevant papers are deposited with The National Archives – and there is no guarantee that they will be) before being permitted some insight into the real depth of the deliberations which led to the introduction of the new flying badge.
In the meantime we have to be content with a statement to the effect that a twin-winged option was rejected on the grounds that it ‘was considered potentially controversial and counter to RAF and RFC traditions.’8 Neither of these arguments was particularly persuasive. Any change relating to badges was more or less bound to provoke controversy, so that was no reason to reject a twin-winged design – unless the real concern was that it might provoke controversy among pilots. Since any new badge was going to supersede the long-established ones, the ‘tradition’ angle also lacked substance. Indeed, if respect for tradition was a real concern, was it not a trifle selective to have invoked only RFC-derived RAF traditions? What of the RNAS and its contribution to the RAF’s heritage? In stark contrast to RFC practice, the first generation of naval back-seaters had worn a twin-winged badge, as do their successors in today’s FAA. Was it not time to acknowledge the naval element of the RAF’s parentage?
The fact is that while there may be some merit in honouring RAF traditions, this particular one leaves the Service in an increasingly isolated position, as most other major air forces have long since abandoned single wings – if they ever adopted them. Thus, while the RAF’s senior pilots may choose to present the defence of their exclusive right to wear a twin-winged badge as the preservation of a tradition, others may see this as merely clinging to an outdated privilege.
Unlike the RAF, the RAAF accepted that a 21st Century navigator should be entitled to wear a twin-winged badge. This is the sterling silver version for wear on shirts; as with the pilots badge, it also comes in cloth, for wear on flying suits and zipper jackets, and in gold filigree for ‘best blue’. Although this became the standard pattern, anyone who had been awarded an old-style ‘N’ badge prior to December 1998 had the option of continuing to wear it (although this concession was withdrawn in 2006). With the virtual demise of the navigator per se, like the RAF, the RAAF eventually restyled its commissioned non-pilot aircrew when, in November 2006, it introduced the new category of the Air Combat Officer (ACO). This category embraced erstwhile navigators, AEOs and air defence officers, all of whom now wear the twin-winged Southern Cross badge, although NCO aircrew continue to wear the old-style single-winged flying badges.
Interestingly, an air force study, conducted shortly before it was decided to merge most rear crew categories, had concluded: that fast-jet navigators shared a common level of responsibility with their pilots; that pilots and navigators required comparable skills, training and leadership qualities; and that the demands placed on the tactical co-ordinator in a maritime crew equated to those of the fast-jet navigator.9 In other words, that pilots and navigators are far more alike than they are different.
This conclusion should hardly have come as a surprise. After all, Bailhache had said as much as long ago as 1916 (see page 32), as had AMP in 1938 when he had directly challenged the validity of the prevailing assumption that ‘the observer need not be of the same high standard as the pilot’ (see page 173). Indeed, it was because the RAF had finally recognised the qualitative similarity between pilots and navigators that it had been fishing in the same pond for them ever since the introduction of the PNB scheme of 1942. Furthermore, in 1948 AMP had acknowledged that ‘there can be no doubt that the mental capacity and professional skill required of a navigator is as high, if not higher, than that required for a pilot’ (see page 289). It was for precisely that reason that the Air Council had begun to offer navigators the same career prospects as pilots, as it has done ever since, although, as we have seen, this equality has always tended to be of a somewhat Orwellian kind.
Under the circumstances, it is arguable that the RAF missed an ideal opportunity to demonstrate its professed commitment to equality in 2000. Since all of the very different kinds of pilot have always worn a common badge and all of the very different rear crew categories were soon going to do so, and, since all aircrew are so alike, it would have been but a short step to accepting that they might as well all wear the same emblem. It is most unlikely that such a radically heretical idea will have even been considered but, if anyone did have the temerity to advance it, it will undoubtedly have been given short shrift.
Instead it was decided to provide rear crew with a new badge which would be ‘a respected and attractive symbol that formally acknowledged completion of a syllabus of flying training.’10 This clause was particularly interesting in the light of the rogue ‘FC’ badge, since it went on to acknowledge that ‘Fighter Control personnel […] do not undergo a full aircrew training course.’11 The irony here, of course, is that these latter day quasi-aircrew were to continue to wear a traditional style badge12 while the Air Force Board invoked ‘tradition’ as a reason for denying the last of the real back-seaters a twin-winged badge.13
There was another factor which made it particularly surprising that the twin-winged option had been so easily dismissed in 2000. One of the last remaining bastions of the single-winged badge had fallen as recently as 1998. In that year the Australians had finally broken ranks by introducing (although not without provoking some inevitable rumblings of discontent among pilots) a twin-winged badge for navigators, thus following the example set by their Canadian cousins half-a-century earlier. The new Australian badge features a representation of the Southern Cross in place of the ‘RAAF’ monogram sported by pilots.
In the first edition of this book, this section ended with a mildly optimistic prediction that this antipodean initiative just might provoke some sort of reaction from the non-pilot community in (what used to be known as) the mother country. As at 2013, it had still failed to do so, leaving the back-seaters of the RAF, RNZAF14 and Indian Air Force as the only commissioned military aviators of serious air forces who continue to wear a flying badge that has only one wing, a distinction that they share with airline cabin staff.15
Wg Cdr Suraya Marshall who, as OC 55(R) Sqn, was the last CO of the navigator training school. (Philip Stevens)
As a footnote, it should perhaps be pointed out that the interrogative heading to this section has also been carried over from the first edition. As it turned out the WSO badge was not ‘the last aircrew badge’. Since then, as previously noted (see page 329) an ‘IA’ badge has been introduced for imagery analysts and in 2012 another was announced for personnel who operate what were originally called unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), drones or, to use the latest jargon, remotely piloted air systems (RPAS). The RPAS badge was remarkable for mirroring the long-established badge worn by fully qualified RAF pilots, differing only in that the laurel wreath is in blue rather than brown (making it, in effect, an RAAF pilots badge less one ‘A’).
The RPAS badge was a really surprising innovation. After all, as recently as 2000 a twin-winged badge for navigators (or WSOs) had been deemed unacceptable on the grounds that it ‘was considered potentially controversial and counter to RAF and RFC traditions’ (see Note 8). If a twinwinged badge was inappropriate for people who flew hundreds of hours a year, some of them in the most demanding high speed, low level environment and all of them potentially under fire, how could the Air Force Board possibly countenance awarding what amounted to a pilots ‘wings’ to someone who had flown only 40 hours to qualify for them and who, although a member of the Flying Branch, did not draw flying pay? Quite remarkable.16 Furthermore, as outlined at Annex L, the process whereby the RPAS badge had been approved was as anomalous as the badge itself.
The distaff side.
Until the introduction of the WSO, the position with regard to non-pilot aircrew at the beginning of the 21st Century was much the same as it had been for the previous thirty or more years, except for the introduction of female aircrew officers. The first one, an air loadmaster, Fg Off Patricia Howard, had been commissioned as early as 1974 but the real breakthrough in this context came in July 1989 when it was announced that the RAF would accept women for training as pilots, navigators, AEOps and air engineers. The first three navigators, all of whom had been internally recruited, began their professional training in September; the first to qualify, Fg Off Anne-Marie Dawe, graduated in March 1991.
To begin with the employment of female pilots and navigators was confined to helicopters and transport aircraft operating in support roles. This constraint was to be shortlived, however, and on 16 December 1991 the Ministry of Defence announced that women would be permitted to fly in combat aircraft as well. By the end of 1994 the RAF had sixty-nine female navigators and pilots. A dozen of the navigators and eight pilots had gained their ‘wings’; the remainder were still undergoing training. Most of the operational navigators had been posted onto heavy aircraft but one was flying in Tornado F3s. Women still represented only a tiny proportion of the 900 pilots and 300 navigators who had passed through the training system between 1989 and 1994, but they were sufficient to make their presence felt and their numbers were growing. By mid-1999 there were fifty-two women qualified as pilots or navigators flying operationally and there were forty-two more in the pipeline.
Having broken through one layer of the glass ceiling to gain access to the previously male preserve of the Crew Room, it remains to be seen whether women navigators (or WSOs) will be any more successful than their male counterparts in securing executive appointments and, the ultimate test, in gaining access to the (almost) exclusively pilot-inhabited domain of the Air Force Board Room. Only time will tell, but in 1992 an air loadmaster, Sqn Ldr Sue Bancroft-Pitman, became the first woman to attain senior officer rank as aircrew. Four years later Flt Lt Sarah Heycock, a navigator with No 206 Sqn, became the first woman to captain a (Nimrod) crew and in 2011, when WSO (navigator) training was terminated, the last CO of the school, then No 55(R) Sqn, was Wg Cdr Suraya Marshall.
2011. The end of an era – the termination of Navigator training.
From the 1980s onwards, user-friendly computers of ever-increasing capacity, flexibility, reliability and accuracy had permitted the introduction of ‘two pilot’ operation in many of the RAF’s larger aircraft, displacing both the navigator and the air engineer from the flight deck.17 This resulted in a substantial reduction in the numbers of navigators that were required, a trend that accelerated in the 1990s when the RAF began to contract as the government took advantage of the reduction in international tension that was anticipated following the ending of the Cold War. This ‘peace dividend’ proved to be somewhat illusory as the relative stability of the Cold War era was replaced by a number of regional conflicts involving expeditionary warfare. Nevertheless, despite increasing commitments, the contraction of the Service continued and by the turn of the century the writing on the wall was becoming increasingly legible – the days of the navigator were clearly numbered.
On 18 February 2011 the last three navigators, Flt Lts J D Lamb, H J Phillips and S J Baker, were presented with their flying badges by Air Chf Mshl Sir Simon Bryant, the most senior navigator in the RAF and the first to gain a fourth star. (Helena Phillips)
By 2000, although the RAF was still employing substantial numbers of non-pilot aircrew, it was plain to see that this was about to change. In the specific case of navigators, according to official figures released in 2000, the annual into training target for that year had fallen to forty-three, compared to 100 in 1988; it was forecast to be a mere fifteen in 2010.18
Long before that, in the light of the forecast decline in numbers, the Air Force Department had concluded that it would become increasingly difficult to sustain a viable career pattern for individual non-pilot aircrew. There was a rather obvious problem with this conclusion, however, because officers of the GD Branch were supposed to have had comparable career prospects, irrespective of their flying badges, for the previous half-century. That being the case, it is not entirely clear why the numbers wearing any particular badge should have affected the issue. Nevertheless, the reduction in numbers was cited as one of the main reasons for deciding to restructure the non-pilot element of, what had since become, the Flying Branch by combining most of the remaining categories in 2003 – hence the WSO.
The end finally came in 2011 when, following an international financial crisis in 2008, a new government elected in 2010 set out to restore the nation’s fiscal position. Draconian cutbacks were imposed on defence spending which, for the RAF, included the disbandment of two squadrons of Tornado GR4s, the (anticipated) early retirement of the Sentinel and the cancellation of the Nimrod MRA4. This, when added to the earlier grounding of the remaining Nimrod MR2s and the withdrawal from service of the Nimrod R1 along with the last of the Tornado F3s, created a surplus of WSOs (navigator) and WSOps (acoustics) and (electronic warfare), permitting training of all three to be terminated. In terms of aircrew, the overall cost involved ‘the axing of around 400 officers, including 170 trainee pilots, and 110 personnel from the Weapons Systems Operators Branch’.19
What this meant for navigators in particular was that the last to graduate would be those on No 512 Course. For those following on behind the outlook was bleak. Students on Nos 513-517 Courses were all removed from training and individually considered for reselection to other branches. A few were successful. Those who were not were discharged from the Service on redundancy terms.
Prior to this, on 18 February 2011, the last three navigators, Flt Lts S J Baker, J D Lamb and H J Phillips, had been presented with their WSO badges by the most senior navigator in the RAF, the AOCinC Air Command, Air Chf Mshl Sir Simon Bryant. While that was particularly appropriate, of course, there was a certain irony in the fact that it had taken almost a century for a rear crew aviator to achieve 4-star rank but, even before he had done so, his category was already in a state of rapidly advancing terminal decline.
It only remained to tidy up the debris. With almost indecent haste, the remaining Dominies were retired. This milestone was marked by a six-aircraft fly-past on 20 January 2011 – a month before the last course graduated. The requirement for navigator training on the Tucano having evaporated, No 76(R) Sqn was formally disbanded on 12 May.
To mark their demise, the Royal Institute of Navigation (RIN) hosted a ‘Farewell Navigator’ seminar at the Royal Air Force Club on 27 June.20 Not to be outdone, on 29 October, RAF Cranwell hosted a splendid formal dinner which was attended by some 300 serving and retired navigators. By that time, the navigation training school had already closed its doors for the last time as No 55(R) Sqn had been disbanded on 30 September, when its Standard had been laid up at Cranwell. The rest is silence.
Postscript – a straw in the wind?
In an interview in which he discussed the conduct of, and the lessons learned from (or, at least taught by – there is a difference) Operation SERVAL – the French intervention in Mali in 2013 – Lt Gen Jean-Patrick Gaviard stated that, in his opinion ‘… it’s again been proven (note that ‘again’ – CGJ) that for long and complex missions two-seat combat aircraft are to be preferred – one of the crew needs to master that entire C2/datalink-networking.’21 Unfortunately, there is no back seat in most of the RAF’s Typhoons and there will be none at all in its F-35s.
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1 As originally planned, the upgraded equipment fit for the Tornado GR4 would have included a Terrain Referenced Navigation System (TRNS) of this type, GEC’s Spartan, but this was subsequently deleted from the programme.
2 See Air Clues, correspondence columns, various issues in 1978 and 1983.
3 See Chapter 27, Note 5.
4 RAF News, 18 August 2000.
5 When the introduction of the aircrew categories of the WSO/WSOp, and their associated badge, were announced, it was recognised that these innovations would need to be justified to those who would be affected. To explain the party line and provide answers to likely questions, an unclassified briefing paper, PTC/200/4/AMP of 7 August 2000, was circulated by the dual-hatted AMP/AOCinC Personnel and Training Command, Air Mshl J R Day. Para 23 of this paper noted that, at the time, it was anticipated that there would be 1,351 WSOs/WSOps in the newly constituted rear crew community, made up of 685 navigators, 110 AEOs, 511 AEOps and 45 air signallers.
6 The term ‘airmen aircrew’ was superseded by that of ‘noncommissioned aircrew’ with effect from 1 April 2003 – see Note 19 to Chapter 34.
7 There was residual trickle of air engineers after this, the very last one eventually materialising, as a WSOp, in May 2005.
8 This rationale was offered at para 20 of the unclassified briefing paper cited at Note 5.
9 Ibid, para 13b.
10 Ibid, para 20.
11 Ibid, para 10.
12 Since the erstwhile commissioned fighter controller was restyled an aerospace battle manager in 2008, while his Trade Group 12 NCO counterpart became an aerospace systems operator, the ‘FC’ badge is now something of an anachronism.
13 For the record, the last ‘N’ badges were awarded to Nos 471 and 473 Courses which graduated on 14 March 2003.
14 With effect from 1 July 2007 the RNZAF replaced its navigators, AEOs and AEOps with Air Warfare Officers (AWO) and Air Warfare Specialist (AWS). Old hands had the option of retaining their old badges but were encouraged, and all new graduates were required, to wear the new, but still single-winged, ‘AW’ badge.
15 Practically all of the air forces which were established by, or in association with, the RAF, notably those of Commonwealth countries, all of which more or less had the single-wing foisted upon them, have since abandoned it. The only other substantial air force to adopt a simple flying ‘O’ was the USAS of WW I but this had been replaced by a twin-wing by 1920. The French Air Force of WW I also used a single-wing set within a wreath, the whole being presented as a metal brooch. French pilots wore a very similar device, their wreath enclosing a double winged emblem, but the brooch was the same size as that worn by observers. Pilots of today’s Armée de l’Air still wear the same brooch, but the very similar brooch worn by a modern navigateur officier systèmes d’armes now has two wings. Other major air forces, eg those of Czarist Russia and the USSR, Poland, Italy, Holland, imperial, Nazi and modern Germany, etc all used/use variations on the twin-winged theme or a variety of brooches but in all cases, while most of these emblems differentiated between pilots and observers/navigators they were of similar sizes and patterns, thus avoiding the ‘half-an-aviator’ stigma implicit in assigning the latter smaller badges and/or designs featuring only one wing.
16 The creation of the sub-specialisation within the Flying Branch of the ‘remotely piloted air systems – pilot’ was announced in CAS’s Message 02/12 dated 14 December 2012, the details being amplified in a Defence Instruction and Notice, 2012DIN01-259.
17 A mere sixty years after the introduction of the aircrew category of the flight engineer, and with their numbers again in steady (and this time terminal) decline the RAF belatedly decided to allow one to command a squadron, Wg Cdr John Reid being appointed as OC 70 Sqn on 22 July 2002.
18 Para 4 of the unclassified briefing paper cited at Note 5.
19 Statement by Air Mshl A D Pulford, DCinC Pers/AMP on 7 March 2011, reported in RAF News No 1269 of 11 March 2011.
20 Introduced by the President of the RIN, Gp Capt David Barnes (Retd), the first three speakers were this writer, Air Cdre Norman Bonnor (Retd) and Wg Cdr Rolfie Dunne (Head of Aerosystems at the Air Warfare Centre), who, between them, reviewed the evolution of the trade of the air navigator and of navigational techniques and technology. They were followed by OC 55(R) Sqn, Wg Cdr Suraya Marshall, and one of the last three WSOs to graduate as navigators, Flt Lt Helena Phillips, with the proceedings being rounded off by Air Chf Mshl Bryant.
21 Air Forces Monthly, June 2013. Lt Gen Gaviard is a retired Armée de l’Air officer who has been employed by NATO as a ‘senior concept developer’ since 2008.