Page 83 - The Chapka 2017

REGIMENTAL JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL LANCERS (QUEEN ELIZABETHS’ OWN) 81
A Navigator waves his ‘GLO Anywhere’ book over the Syrian desert. GLO in the back
Burning holes in the Sky – Ground Liaison Officer 12(B) Sqn and SO3 Air Land Integration Operation SHADER
This year has been fascinating. As one of three Army officers embedded in a sea of light blue – and now dark blue as well – it is a lonely existence made brighter only by working with exceptionally high performing semi-sociopathic individuals which we know as ‘aircrew’. Some pilots and navigators on the Tornado force have been flying the Tornado longer than I have been alive and as such know the terrain of North Iraq intimately.
Our penultimate tour of Operation SHADER finished in March 2017. ISIS – or Da’esh – had been expelled from the Iraqi city of Mosul. As we resumed command in August 2017 the coalition had begun the clearance of the Syrian city of Raqqa. Thus our job, as the UK air component, made of Sentinel reconnaissance aircraft, Typhoon and Tornado fighters, and the all patient, A300 tanker, was to assist the ground forces pursuit of Da’esh into the desert of South East Syria and West Iraq and affect their destruc- tion. Come January 2018 the effective territorial extent of Da’esh was a strip of desert in Syrian Abu Kamal (I can only think of an UK analogy as Durness head, Scotland).
What an extraordinary conflict this has been. A Tornado can fly over the breadth of Syria and Iraq (c.1500km) in less than 1.5 hours. In that time they fly over Syrian pro-regime government forces, pro-regime militias, Russian ‘advisors’, US servicemen from all 4 branches, Hezbollah, Iranian militias, Shia militias,
Syrian Kurds, Iraqi Kurds, Rojavans, Iraqi forces and forces from most nations of NATO. And Da’esh. Bearing in mind still sensitive operational details, there are some memorable mo- ments from this most recent tour. The Iraqi forces ‘diversion’ into Kurdistan; American tanker pilots methods of entertain- ing refuelling aircrew; flying a Tornado/A300 formation over the operational airspace at night gently soaring around flickering cumulus towers of lightning that stretched over 10,000ft tall. Perhaps one moment stands out from the many as a quintessen- tial example of NATO cooperation in this fight. The bewilder- ment of a Canadian tanking crew trying to communicate with a British Tornado flown by an American F18 pilot with a Scottish Navigator in the back and a Lebanese navigator and Austral- ian pilot flying nearby as a wingman. The formation’s callsign? Rainbow 1.
In February 2018, 12(B) Squadron was disbanded and I continue to work with 617 Squadron; the new shiny Joint Strike Fighter, F35 Lightning II jet, is set to make a debut in July this year. We wait with baited breath. Has some one else said that in this edition?
AJP
Tornado GR4’s on take off – afterburner is required until almost 3000ft to keep the old bird going