RAF flies with '1960s technology'

STEVE BOGGAN

Pilots and military experts painted a sorry picture of Britain's air defences yesterday, describing how tired technicians cannibalised Tornado fighter-bombers to enable overstretched aircrew to fly those which were still operational.

As concern grew over thegrowing number of military jet losses, one unnamed pilot said there were even worries about the availability of weapons. "We have no idea what state they're in," he said. "They're too expensive to use."

The RAF has commitments in Italy, Belize, the Falklands, Germany, Bosnia, Turkey and Bahrain, as well as in Britain, at a time when the Ministry of Defence is cutting budgets by 30 per cent. "Everyone is overstretched," said the pilot. "The Air Force is doing too much on too few resources. The RAF budgets for the loss of up to 12 lives and pounds 120m worth of equipment each year. Already, the equipment level is used up.

"These are old aircraft and they are getting worn out," he said, adding that he believed the level of professionalism of those servicing and flying the aircraft had not decreased, although the level of experience on squadrons had fallen. "Everyone is working longer and harder," he said. "When your nose is constantly stuck to the grindstone, things are going to happen."

In December, Jane's Defence weekly established that on one day last September, only six out of 36 Tornado GR1 fighters were serviceable at RAF Bruggen in Germany, the base from which the latest crashed Tornado was flying.

An RAF source quoted by the publication said: "With Options for Change [the defence review] we were told to make cuts and then we have to step up flying time for Bosnia. The result is that there are aircraft grounded on every Tornado base in Britain and Germany."

Paul Beaver, a spokesman for Jane's, said: "The Air Force is very vulnerable at the moment because of over-utilisation, a lack of spare parts and the grounding of aircraft simply so they can be cannibalised to get others operational."

Flight Lieutenant John Nichol, who, with John Peters, became the first British aircrew to be captured in Iraq, refused to discuss operational matters relating to the Tornado. However, he described the aircraftas "a bit long in the tooth".

"It's basically 1960s technology designed as a low-level penetrative bomber to cope with the needs of the Cold War - that is, to take out Soviet airfields in East Germany," he said. "It has the same computing capacity as a Sinclair ZX Spectrum - the first computer brought out by Clive Sinclair.

"I still believe we have the best aircrew in the world," he added, "but we are being required to do an increasingly hard job with nothing more than mediocre equipment."