More than a year after U.S. defense officials offered three
RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft as a replacement for the same number of Royal Air Force BAE Nimrod R1 signals intelligence (SIGINT) aircraft, the UK Ministry of Defence has not made a decision. Senior RAF officers have said that the Nimrods perform a vital task, and they last month promised the UK Parliament that there would not be “a capability gap” when the Nimrods are withdrawn from service in 2011. But the Nimrod SIGINT replacement seems to have fallen afoul of the UK’s defense budget squeeze. The MoD told AIN that a decision would be made late this year, and the R1s would be extended in service if necessary.
The U.S. offer is to have three Boeing KC-135R airframes converted for the SIGINT role by L-3 Integrated Systems (L-3 IS) at Greenville, Texas, where the 17-strong U.S. fleet of Rivet Joints is maintained and upgraded. However, the MoD has been exploring alternatives, most notably whether the remanufactured version of the Nimrod due to enter RAF service next year in the maritime patrol role could also serve as a SIGINT platform. The MoD previously planned to keep the three Nimrod R1s in service with an upgrade codenamed Project Helix. To perform the work, the MoD selected a team led by L-3 IS and also consisting of BAE, LogicaCMG and QinetiQ and initially awarded them a study contract worth $21.7 million.
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