Page 11 - RAF Lossiemouth Special Report

Visiting RAF Lossiemouth: The RAF Shapes a Way Ahead

You need to make sure that you’re following all the protocols that we have.

It is challenging.

Question: One challenge you face is that when you go on a mission, bombing in Libya or air policing in
the Baltics, your pilots are honing their skills in one area.

How do you deal with the challenge of training with other proficiencies?

OC II(AC) Sqn: That is a problem.

When you’re out on operations, you’re just doing that single thing. You’re not practicing all the other skill sets;
and it’s not like riding a bike.

It is like playing a musical instrument.

Getting people to keep current on lots of different mission sets whilst being deployed is a challenge.

And we are expanding our training systems with regard to synthetics as a key way to try to enhance our
multi-mission proficiencies.

Question: This is also significant as you end the Tornado era and operate Typhoon as a multi-mission
asset.

How do you see this challenge?

OC II(AC) Sqn: It is a challenge.

There are two different roles for a pilot, control the air and attack; but anyone should be doing both at the
same time.

But with the Typhoon doing a multi-role mission we are now taking the two people in the cockpit in the
Tornado and relying on only one in the cockpit now to transition among the mission sets.

When we’re teaching swing role, and taking people through swing role mindset, I often see people writing,
“Get the bombs on target, and then deal with the rest of the mission.”

Actually, that is not the philosophy at all.

The philosophy is that we are an air system, an integrated air system.

You need to control that air space before you can do anything, be that take photos or get bombs on target

Our entire mission, our raison d’etre, is to control the airspace that we want to operate in, before we even do
anything else.

It’s not a mindset change, really, but it’s more of a discipline change, in that “I want to prioritize different
things at different times.”

Doctrinally there is a distinction between Control of the Air and Attack, but Control of the Air is the First
Among Equals.

No one conducts surveillance, no one delivers airborne troops and no-one responds to a TIC until we have
established the necessary Control of the Air.

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