Bombardier Raytheon Sentinel

Bombardier Thor Sentinel Story

The Bombardier Raytheon Sentinel is currently (2013) in service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) as the primary air battlefield and ground patrol aircraft. In-theater platforms are used for real-time data collection, intelligence gathering, unarmed maritime patrols, and battlefield surveillance. Currently, the RAF Sentinel fleet remains active, although only five prototypes have been procured in total.

Sentinel is the UK equivalent of the United States Air Force E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System.

Sentinel was born out of the British Army's Airborne Standoff Radar (ASTOR) programme, and the rapid success of the Coalition forces in the 1991 Gulf War defined the need for dedicated requirements. The war has proven the value of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) in tracking and striking ground enemies. Such services are mainly provided by the US, prompting the UK to seek its own independent solution. Before the war of 1984, a Britton-Norman BN-2T Islander with mission equipment, although still seeking a dedicated purpose-built platform, eventually provided funding to launch the Bombardier (Canada) Global Express business jet, similar to For modifying Thor equipment.

The Department of Defense acquired the program in 1993 - accepting Sentinel. The final product will include a combination of land and air assets to fully utilize the battlefield.

The initial commercial Global Express business jet program was launched on December 20, 1993, with its first flight on October 13, 1996. In July 1999, the first foreign customer became Malaysia.

The UK's official defence procurement contract was awarded in December 1999. After several years of development, including testing Rolls-Royce engines and a new airframe, the first prototype flew for the first time in August 2001. Production Quality The airframe lifted off on May 26, 2004 and completed a flight lasting more than four hours - a testament to the mission kit's design and sound (and new aerodynamic layout). The converted Bombardier aircraft entered RAF service as a "Sentinel R1" and was delivered to the 5th (AC) Squadron ("Army Cooperative") at RAF Waddington Air Force Base - in addition to the eight Mobile Ground Stations (MGS ), 5 airframes were also purchased.

While an official release was originally expected in 2005, delays in the Sentinel program prompted a 2008 release.

As you might expect, the Sentinel retains the same basic shape and configuration as the original Bombardier Global Express jet. The design includes a streamlined cylindrical fuselage with the cockpit held forward. The front of the fuselage has a pronounced pointed cone that tapers towards the rear.

The wings are mounted low on the sides of the fuselage and are covered with winglets for added stability. The engine was mounted in a separate nacelle on the short tail in front of the tail unit. The tail itself consists of a vertical tail, while horizontal planes are added to the tail to create a "T" configuration. All wing surfaces (main components and tail) are swept back for maximum aerodynamic efficiency.

The landing gear is fully retractable and can be mounted on a pair of twin-wheeled main legs of the intermediate body, as well as on the twin-wheeled front strut below the flight deck. However, the Sentinel differs markedly from commercial aircraft in that it incorporates a dorsal SATCOM fuselage fairing and a 15-foot elongated ventral radome structure at the rear of the cockpit, which houses the appropriate mission equipment.

In addition, the ventral stripes can be seen under the rear wing.

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Sentinel is flown by a crew of five, including two pilots, the Airborne Mission Commander (AMC) and two image interpretation specialists/analysts (from the RAF or Army Intelligence). The aircraft will fly nearly 100 feet in length, with a wingspan of 93 feet 6 inches and an overall altitude of 27 feet. The airframe weighs 54,000 pounds empty and can take off at 93,500 pounds with full mission equipment and fuel. It is powered by two Rolls-Royce BR710 series turbofan engines with 14,750 pounds of thrust each. This gives the plane a top speed of 570 mph, a range of up to 5,800 miles, and a maximum service ceiling of 49,000 feet.

The mission duration is 9 hours, and the primary mission altitude is over 40,000 feet to maximize the range of the airborne radar (range is about 300 kilometers).

Internally, the Sentinel is equipped with a range of advanced mission tracking and surveillance systems. The primary facility is Raytheon's Modular Dual-Mode Synthetic Aperture/Moving Target Indication (SAR (MTI) System) - a Lockheed U-2 Force-based ASARS-2 system and allied tracking.

An integrated data link system can transmit mission information to the operator and mission commander at the ground control station for further review/analysis. There are three operator stations on Sentinel.

Unarmed, aircraft are assigned basic defenses such as towed radar decoys and automatic chaff/flare dispensers to counter enemy radar/missile tracking. Missile warning receivers identify potentially lethal aerial threats.

The Sentinel R1 was initially deployed in February 2009 to an active theater in Afghan airspace to support coalition forces in the theater (however, movement was restricted). Sentinels were then deployed to support coalition operations related to the 2011 Libyan civil war, with excellent results. Originally designed for conventional large-scale warfare involving columns of enemy armored vehicles, Sentinels have proven effective at spotting minor threats to Allied ground forces. Most recently, it was involved in providing surveillance capabilities to support French leadership in war zones during the Fluid Mali campaign (January 2013) - a campaign focused on eliminating the growing militant presence in former French colonies and African countries.

Sentinel remains one of the few aerial surveillance options available to NATO to date.

For now, the 2010 UK Strategic Defence and Security Review recommends the complete phase-out of the expensive and highly specialised Sentinel fleet by 2015, especially as the UK is about to end its involvement in the Afghanistan theatre. However, the single Sentinel aircraft recently demonstrated for the campaign in Mali could well prevent that type of disbandment, albeit only in the short term, as the platform has proven extremely important in ongoing combat with the armed forces. The aircraft is capable of locating the source of enemy indirect fire and identifying potential ground threats from above, while coordinating airstrikes by coalition aircraft. It was further proposed that Sentinel would be relieved of its role on the battlefield by the winner of the yet-to-be-determined Scavenger Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) drone program, which is believed to be a more cost-effective long-term solution.

The ability of Raytheon radars to operate effectively in difficult sea conditions while patrolling at sea is known to severely limit the tactical value of Sentinel fleets. As a result, RAF authorities are significantly divided over the direction ultimately taken.

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