The A319 MPA is a long range anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare,intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance aircraft.The combination of a reliable twinturbofan configuration, a suitable lowaltitude loitering/search performance, an exceptional endurance and fast transit speed make the A319 the Maritime Patrol aircraft for the 21st century.
A proven open architecture Mission System, that includes a set of state-of-the-art multi-mission sensors coupled with enhancedcommunication equipment, allows the A319 MPA to conduct its missionin a Network Centre (NC) Operation environment.
too late to market, the EU is not engaged militarily globally…this plane will not be a best seller.
the biggest problem with EU products isn’t the quality, its the lack of military relationships. sending a special ops team to train might be nice, but if you can put a battalion on the ground for a couple of weeks to a month that’s so much better and reaches the total force, not just the ninjas.
4 hours endurance vs 9 for Nimrod. No substitute.
Good attempt to muscle in on the manned jet MPA before Boeing sews up the available market with the P-8 Poseidon. A319 seems to be smaller, lighter but slightly faster and with a similar range at 4h time on station. Will be interesting to see how how the operating costs stack up.
This is an option no doubt it has global supply network for the airframe and is very popular. It endurance will be more than 4 hours prob closer to 6 or 7 but it has an aar capability. I do think we need to make a big decision soon. Over the next 15 years sigint AWACS mpa and Astor capability could all be replaced with a common platform either based on the 737 family or a320 series. The airbus route would allow commonality with a400m and a330 as we’re probably looking for 20-26 a/c we could ask that airbus has the conversion facility for all future types of this a/c in broughton. Only Indian has signed up to p8 there remains a small window of opportunity to make this happen.
Very much agreed Mark, whatever comes after Nimrod will cast the die for whatever comes after the E3
@all: err, please look in the mirror. We all complain that the MOD keeps on wasting money, now we all want to spend billions developing a new aircraft, of which we will never buy more than 20, when there is an off the shelf option. WTF!
well it is the future…but Boeing for once has a head start on EADS. it has its 737 serving as an small AWACS and now has the MPA up and running. and lets face it…everyone is looking east and China is building subs like crazy so commonality with the US Navy will be a big selling feature.
what i’d really like to see is a kit developed for the A-400 to perform this type of mission. that would make it an omni-role lift platform and might make it more attractive.
Rupert it would not take billions were using already designed systems on a well established commercial design which is selling everywhere (1500 orders this year alone). I would also say we could operate this contract in a way commercials do with airbus tell them develop this and well buy x number and agree a price up front then let them get on with it.
There is integration work no doubt and some modification to the basic a/c. The french no doubt would have a similar requirement to ourselves possibly even Germany Italy and Spain. Australia maybe interested too it has a liking for the airbus a/c.
As ive said before the miltary fast jet market is done in this country we will support f35 and typhoon from now on but no new design likely. UAVs will only ever be a very small market for a UK or European design. This is a opportunity to get involved more with airbus than we currently do and on a type of a/c where there will be a large future requirement world wide.
Solomon 400m would be too larger and more expensive in this role than a a319.
@Mark: it *would* take billions. This may be an established commercial design, but it would require structural modifications for a bomb bay for starters. The real cost would come in integrating even an off the shelf avionics package. But the biggest problem is just what has comprehensively screwed the UK armed services over the last quarter century; failure to take comprehensive decisions at the correct time. For political purposes, we have repeatedly started mainly European joint ventures for requirements that would have been cheaper to realise by national programs. We have also started development programs, whether national or european, for tiny requirements, when buying off the shelf made far more sense.
Lets imagine that FR, DE, AU etc decide to produce an MPA based on the A319. For starters, FR and DE will insist that AU can’t be involved, because they aren’t “european”. Then, the FR will insist on being in charge, whatever the size of their requirement: they always do, see AFVG, EFA etc. Years will pass while things are worked out. Then the project starts, and Airbus, will instantly be told to do all sorts of things, despite it’s supposed commercial freedom. Remember, the A400 was supposed to be developed in the same way, but for political the existing US engine was junked and a “european” solution was developed: why do you think it is so late?
Rupert
This would not be a european project as such this would be a airbus project in much the same way as the a330 tanker was done not costing billions. And the asw equipment is that fitted to the airbus c-295 and p3 projects.
The 737 version spent most money on developing the asw system off the back of nimrod this would not require that effort.
The bomb bay would most likely replace the aft cargo bay and not be a huge job especially as this is a gd old fashioned metal fuselage.
A400m had the problem in that it was a new aircraft which means that work share is required to be divided up between the partner nations to which Germany wanted most and had the biggest say. And believe it not Australian design offices were involved in a400m. These like a330 tanker would come off existing production lines for modification after production or a mod to the aft fuse in build again not affecting any work share the only issue being were completion is done which could be in the UK.
Airbus I believe would develop this if a launch order of around 15-20 a/c were given.
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/airbus-military-reveals-work-on-sigint-a320-342483/
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/iai-eads-discuss-adapting-a320-for-airborne-early-warning-335527/
also note that the equipment inside is a standard fit (called FITS ironically) therefore you could have a high/low mix with the 295 for inshore stuff like shadowing the subs in and out of faslane, possibily have one down in the unmentionable isles and then the bigger 319′s for long range patrolling, with all these holiday companies struggling, there must be spare aircraft about for us to give to airbus to convert lowering the cost, bear in mind i believe the govt lent £100million to thomas cook couple of weeks ago.
not sure what the point of this thread is, we have lost our MPA capacity and I doubt if we will ever get it back. Politicians do not rate defence spending as important, a capacity once lost is highly unlikely to be regained. Sorry to be negative but I think the Uk’s armed forces will be third divison by 2020..
And they talk of innovation and exports!
I think going the airbus route would be much more ideal for the UK, we can be involved and I feel such projects would be quite flexible, the a330 is generally a good idea, problem is its PFI.
I’m very much intrigued as to what will happen to the systems designed for Nimrod, will we mod them to fit in a new aircraft or kick our engineers in the balls and go American? I have a strange feeling the boot is on and currently drawing back…..
Ah, Mark, Australia has had a watching brief and DSTO/RAAF involvement on the P-8 for the past half decade. The current plan is to acquire around 8 spiral one upgrade p-8′s later in the decade to replace one of the Orion Sqn’s.
If Europe wanted to get a look in they would have to have product in the air no-later than 2016. We are not going to sign up for a development when we can buy a P-8 off the shelf with our interest catered for in the spiral one upgrade. The Tiger and the NH90 developments have left a very bad taste out here for European works in progress.
Not to mention that the RAAF has 8 737s in service – 6 awacs + 2 BBJ VIPs
Hi AJ & wre,
I have a feeling that your Orions will continue to fly for a long time in the SIGINT role (and as a numbers back-up for the new MPAs).
- second-hand Orions are often raised on this site (for refurbing with more modern systems). Is that a worthwhile idea from the remaining airframe life point of view? The French are going down that route with their Atlantique 2′s.
Rec has a fair point here.
Rightly or wrongly the SDSR 2010 wrote-off a large investment in Nimrod MPA to save a billion pounds operating costs over ten years. Having made that call, it is a fairly certain bet that there isn’t any item described as the ‘MPA replacement’ sitting in any current MoD budget. Any return to a specialist MPA capability will have to wait until SDSR 2020 when it’s conceivable that funding and political will might be available. That said, given the UK’s now ingrained abandonment of this aspect of capability even with new funding it would have to be judged strategically necessary to warrant its reconstitution from the ground up. That’s not a given; MPA is not the only way to monitor surface activity or to chase submarines.
The originally proposed 21 strong fleet of Nimrod was borne of the UKs share of Cold War perceptions, which don’t exist today. Unless in 2020 we are looking at a heightened submarine threat in the north Atlantic I can’t see anyone willing to sacrifice more regiments, F35s, or T26s to buy a 20+ strong MPA fleet.
My feeling is that we will eventually return to MPA as a niche capability, say 6 or 7 aircraft in traditional terms, but with the project merging with Sentinel capability, Sentinel/E3 platforms and space based radar.
AJ
Indeed yes p8 would most likely be the Aussie choice but they haven’t ordered anything yet and they did buy the a330 tanker there could be a small window of oportunity. I would ask if the wedge tail had a nice smooth entry into service which maybe has some baring on the p8 order.
THE SDSR relegated martime resources signigicantly, party interservice politics (RAF offering to cut the Nimrod and Harrier to save Tornado), and that for whatever reason the UK government doesn`t see martime as important(hence loss of 1/4 Frigates). ( I disagree) but expect to see a Royal Nay post 2020 of 6 Type 45s, 6 Type 26s, 7 Astutes, and 1 CVF (with a small air group). Nothing will change that unless something significant happens between now and 2020. I remember reading MOD papers back in the 1980s that envisaged a Royal Navy of just 12 escourts and 7 submarines. Its the Civil Servants who decide policiy and not politicians (they dont have any military background so go with the flow.)
Richardw
Unless of course if things over the last 12 months have been much more difficult than expected to cover with other assets or if serviceability and operation deployments have meant the gap was wider than admitted. It wouldn’t be 20+ mpa It would be around 12 a/c for mpa but there will be a requirement for AWACS, sigint, Astor wide area replacement over the next 15 years also which would take you to over 20 a/c.
RichardW, you’re right in so far as there is still need for enduring nuclear ASW in the North Atlantic as Russia gets ever more ambitious and continues to rattle our cage. But an MPA is THE most capable tool in littoral conventional ASW, which is arguably our greatest ASW threat at present.
Today the most important role for any MPA is not ASW but ASuW and surface surveillance. A persistent airborne overwater surveillance capability is precisely the capability we need to conduct effective maritime operations. Bottom line, we should NOT have chopped Nimrod; it’s endurance alone would give it massive advantage over any other platform, no matter how new and shiny the wigglies inside.
Looks to me like the Aussies got this one right – they were in the game way back at the beginning, and are now lining up for the right MPA capability. My bet is we will buy into P8, eventually.
Can’t remember who it was but whoever suggested converting spare civvy jets into MPA’s, have a look at the Voyager project and tell me it’s a good idea.
Personally I’m holding out for SDSR 2015 as being rather more maritime centric than some would believe. If I was a soldier, I’d be freshening up my CV about now and screwing the MOD for any civquals I can get!
RE ACY, the RAAF operates 19 P-3C’s at the moment, the plan is to fully replace them with around 8 P-8′s and 5 HALE UAV’s(nominally global hawk)by the end of the decade. Once the C-130H’s go (which may happen if the 6th C-17 is purchased) the P-3C are the only users of the T56 engine. It is a great engine but it is old and requires a dedicated maintenance facility. Moving on to 737′s or an a 320 style airframe would allow the RAAF to use existing airline infrastructure. Its all dollars I am afraid.
The interesting issue out here is what happens to the RNZAF, they operate 5 C-130H’s and 6 P-3B both of which are upgraded, but 1960′s builds. On paper they both run out of hours mid 2020′s. It is most unlikely they can afford to replace them like for like, which would tend to leave a hole to Australia’s east. Some surplus RAF C-130J’s may be in the frame!
Does anyone imagine that our allies will be happy to continue to cover the gap we have created by not bringing Nimrod into service (I suspect that chopping it saved more than a billion as I reckon it was needing quite a lot of further work to get a fully functional aircraft with all its systems at 100% and it needed an almost immediate update of some of its systems like the OE turret to meet the current standards of its peers)? Take the Olympics for example, do we really believe that the US is chuffed to have to offer a couple of P-3′s to cover them? Do we think that they will keep lending us P-3′s to cover our sub’s transit’s? My guess is that well before 2015 we will announce a deal to lease three or four P-3′s from the States – the main stumbling block is where to stick them, as for lots of reasons it will not be at RAF Kinloss?
The only people in western Europe with under utilised MPA are the Germans.
How about a luftwaffe base in the UK operating a flight of P-3C’s under NATO.
(Your current bunch of politicians are just about mad enough! …………Have a happy new year.)
Although there maybe many benefits of trying to work together with Europe on ASW and ISTAR platforms for the future, with defence spending being heavily squeezed up to 2020 (Unless some miracle happens with our economy and that of the rest of the EU) I cannot realy see platforms based on the A320 getting off the ground.
If we do decide to get back into the MPA game it will probably be with the P-8 but there are precidence for removing a capability and using allies assets to cover the gap. Look at ASW training where we have used allied conventional subs since be withdrew the Upholders.
Running ASW in the Greenland, Iceland UK gap should become a NATO responsiblity with nations rotating detachments, with the UK providing basing facilities and maybe aircrew. Just a thought.
Well I can see a a320 based solution if this is progressed further
Germany to Press Maritime Patrol Aircraft Pool
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=7239640&c=EUR&s=TOP.
I believe that maritime patrol was ditched to avoid cutting other programs that were required in or supporting Afghanistan. I suspect had further reductions in the army been possible this would not have been cut. I would opt for immediate withdrawal of puma a slightly accelerated tornado draw down and further personnel reduction in army numbers to pay for reintroduction of mpa capability.
As least in the subs case we still had subs in this case we have nothing at all to offer in way of an a/c or crew.
As for the removal of capabilities and not being replaced its true but then this impacts more UK only tasks than probably any other that went before.
Somewhat removed not sure exactly what you think is wrong with voyager. The way the UK financed the program far enough but I think the Australians showed us how it should be done. They order them in 2004 as launch customer and certainly 4 if not all 5 now delivered.
@Aussie Johnno
I doubt very much that Germany would agree to basing P-3′s in the UK. I have read (and massively extrapolated from some rather sketchy one liners) comments by the French when we were thrashing out the Anglo-French deal that suggested the French were looking for joint crewing of their MPA’s with some tasked to cover the UK area of responsibility, but we did not want to play ball – my guess is that they wanted Kinloss for the Army more than they want an LRMPA capability.
@ Mark,
Lots of rumours (ARRSE, PPRUNE) that Puma is for the axe to make PR12 work out, I would be happy if they eventually replaced the Puma with a cheap workhorse but they will not (I dream of a large KAI Surion purchase, will be available in basic utility and a separate naval version with high communality with the utility version, and the South Korea’s are buying 245 for $4.5 billion for the manufacturing contract, that’s $18.3 million a helicopter, not cheap but not that expensive either, we could get 30 for around £355 million, which is only slightly more than what it cost to upgrade 28 Puma’s).
Hi Tubby,
Why don’t we just buy the Pumas axed by the Dutch (they are bigger and better than ours), “DAS” them as was planned in the upgrade… and get good value, plenty quick(er)
RE ” that’s $18.3 million a helicopter, not cheap but not that expensive either, we could get 30 for around £355 million, which is only slightly more than what it cost to upgrade 28 Puma’s)”
Surion is a super platform.
But I bet the only way the MoD would buy some if they were made in Scrumpy Land with British Standard Whitworh nuts and bolts, a different engine, and with all the profit disappearing to pay off the Italian debt mountain.
Hi ACC,
Not a bad plan – I had thoughts of before purchasing any Puma and Super Puma’s in reasonable condition on the open market and as far as possible converting them to the same standard as our Puma’s, it would be good to get an additional 30 or so, especially as the long term plan of the Puma in the 2020′s with more Chinook’s looks in doubt. There again I am also for a deep overhaul of all of our Sea Kings rather than the tricky proposal of either trying to fit folding tail and rotor, and tie down points on ex-RAF Merlin’s while carrying out a mid life upgrade, or performing the mid-life upgrade anyway and giving them “as is” to the FAA knowing they will have to be stored above deck as they would be too big for the lifts or for easy stowage under deck, and the only platform big enough would be QE, resulting in QE being kept as the worlds most over priced LPH ever.
Argh! – Please TD bring back the edit function – my sentence “especially as the long term plan of the Puma in the 2020′s with more Chinook’s looks in doubt” should read “especially as the long term plan of replacing the Puma in the 2020′s with more Chinook’s looks in doubt”.
Hi x,
Likely correct, at the very least they want to replace the GE engines with RR Gem’s of some flavour, and I might be bang out of order, but it usually seems that the RR helicopter engines are underpowered compared to GE helicopter engines. Still it would need a new cockpit would it? Presumably all the instrumentation would be in Korean, and RAF aircrew might all be geniuses (so they tell us
) but even they might struggle with Korean flight controls. I am now imagining a moving map display in Korean where you have a to spend ten minutes navigating the menus to find the option to change it to English, which is then clearly translated using an on-line translator, I have a cheap Toshiba MP3 player does something similar, every time it is turned off it defaults to Japanese and I have to navigate user un-friendly menus to change to illiterate English 
God I need another drink!
I was going to say “different underpowered engine” but thought I was over egging the pudding.
@ Tubby
Looks like the cockpit is labelled in English.
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/1159/107oom.jpg
Tubby
Off thread Ino but I would have either upgraded the remaining 8 rn merlins or got 8 new merlins in csar (with aar) config and using them for very long range sar within uk or any other kind of uk opp and be the part of the uks overseas disaster relief response as apparently not only are we unprepared for such things but we contribute by far the largest amount to the UN budget http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16336396.
Did the Super puma fix the pumas problem of falling over? QE due oct 2016 now with first modified merlins due isd 2017 funding permitting. We will have a 4 type helicopter fleet only.
the language of aviation is english you can have local language as an add on but not its primary one unless your french ATC
.
Another reality check. The french partnership will die with Sarkozys loss of the early-2012 election. Forget about A319 MPA, it is as much an existing platform as SeaTyphoon.
Alternative: let’s make a call to Brasilia instead; offer T1 Typhoons for a bargain price and secure upgrading contracts; in exchange Embraer gets a 10-year deal comprising KC-390, P-99, R-99A and R-99B, around 50 aircraft all in all, with the latter three actually operational. Introduce BAE to partner with Embraer to develop the family further and get the high-value systems part. Seal the deal for T26 in the same stroke, and ask them if they need a carrier around 2020, since we need to keep our yards working and we basically have a very competitive design.
Win-win.
Hi Mark,
Thanks for the info, I knew that English was the language of civil aviation, but I always thought that major military aviation manufacturing countries like Russia and China tended to use their own languages – of course what is important (and what I have never really seen proper photographs off) is what language is used on the MFD’s as they either show a lot of fused sensor information or moving maps, I have seen some shots mocking up the actual displays as shown on the MFD’s in the F35 but typically all you see for Russian or Chinese aircraft is the inactive cockpit, some of which have clearly been photoshopped!
My own opinion is that they will probably try to find a way to contract maritime out to a civilian organisation if they can. Civilian contracts in the public sector are always stupid so I hope that isn’t the case.
I’m deeply opposed to Airbus getting any more out of us. It’s always a political decision that ends up with a complicated construction process (often in several countries) and a supply chain that seems to take longer than it should.
P-3′s are a bit old hat and a step backwards from what we scrapped (arguably everything is). I’m not opposed to prop aircraft given that the potential for increased loitering time over jet counterparts. Depending on where they are based though there should be a decision on the need for engine compatibility with whatever else is based there. One reason why the decision to give Kinloss over to the army is moronic.
As far as MPA are concerned I think we should wait a little while and run a proper competition for contract. I’m interested in seeing some info on the Kawasaki P-1 (ditto the Mitsubishi C2) because Japan as an island faces very much similar conditions to our own. Kawasaki also have some experience from building (and heavily modifying) Japan’s versions of the Neptune and the Orion.
wasn’t there a £1b budget line for a future MPA capability?
@jedibeeftrix
ah but that’s only valid until they cut it in the next spending review.
Personal opinion is that when they (stupidly) privatise SAR and most of the need for MPA, as they see it, goes they won’t bother replacing it.
Whatever offensive or secretive stuff can’t be done by private company might then go to the Royal Navy; possibly to a service vessel system or be done by drone, another idea that I’m not fond of but it might make sense with them moving the engineers up to Kinloss.
I think the A319 wont happen for the UK forces. If they get lucky maybe 8 P8s as part of a package to include an other capabilities on the same platform But Martime forces took a big hit in the SDSR and I have seen enough defence reviews to be pessimistic about the future of the RN.