Angus Batey has been contributing to various titles within the Aviation Week Network since 2009. He has reported from military bases, industrial facilities, trade shows and conferences, on topics ranging from defense and space to business aviation, advanced air mobility and cybersecurity.
As a Royal Marine warrant officer in Y Sqdn., 3 Commando Brig.’s electronic warfare (EW) unit, Gavin O’Connell became convinced during tours in Afghanistan in 2002 and Iraq in 2003 that EW was being squandered as a capability. He saw the need to better integrate EW within a wider signals intelligence (sigint) and intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (Istar) perspective.
Changing combat conditions in Afghanistan and the advent of high-resolution pod-mounted sensors have seen a surge in fighter planes being used for a new type of recon activity known as non-traditional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (NTISR).
Bernard Gray, the U.K.’s new defense materiel chief, began the year with a project that may be nearing the top of his priorities list: the £1-billion ($1.6-billion) Warrior Capability Sustainment Program (WCSP), a multifaceted plan to upgrade 600 Warrior armored fighting vehicles (DTI September 2009, p. 36). WCSP is the type of program that Gray, author of a critical report on defense procurement commissioned by the previous Labour administration, was appointed to assure never happens again.
