8 2GM
News
RAF pilots train
abroad after jet
engines ‘blow up’
Larisa Brown Defence Editor
Britain is spending millions of pounds a
year to send pilots overseas for training
because the RAF does not have enough
fast-jet training aircraft available.
Hawk T2 training aircraft were grounded meaning that the RAF has to spend up to £55 million training pilots overseas Problems with the Hawk T2 jets have
resulted in less than half the fleet being
available for training in the UK because
they cannot fly for too long without the
engines “blowing up”, sources said.
As a result the Ministry of Defence is
having to pay the United States and
Italy as much as £55 million over the
next three years, about £2 million per
pilot, so they can train them instead.
This is in addition to the roughly
£5.4 million already spent on training
each pilot in the UK, even though a
large chunk of the training cannot be
provided. RAF sources said some
money would be saved because the
RAF did not have to pay for aircraft to
be serviced or for fuel.
John Spellar, a Labour MP who sits
on the defence select committee, said
the Hawk programme had been “appal-
lingly mismanaged by a stubborn RAF
that will not get a grip of it”. He said the
service should have invested in the next
generation of training aircraft rather
than allowing pilots to be stuck in the
training pipeline for years.
Air Marshal Edward Stringer, who
was director of operations at the Minis-
try of Defence, said the RAF should
have ensured that there were sufficient
extra engines in case of such eventuali-
ties. He added that the pilot training
programme was already “fragile”
because of an “insufficient number of
fast-jet pilots”.
In January last year it emerged that
the RAF had been forced to ground its
entire fleet of Hawk T2 jets after the
engines in effect “blew up” while on the
runway at RAF Valley in north Wales,
an RAF source said. It emerged that
there was a problem with the Rolls-
Royce engine on the jet that involved
Scholz seeks to calm nerves
over military phone call leak
Bruno Waterfield Brussels
The German chancellor has insisted
that his country will not send troops to
help Ukraine to use long-range missiles
after senior air force officers were
found to have discussed the practical-
ities in a leaked conference call.
The head of the German air force,
Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz,
used a phone line that was not encrypt-
ed to discuss military secrets, including
using British “people on the ground”
who would be able to help Germany to
deploy Taurus cruise missiles.
British military sources and Nato
allies were dismayed by the apparent
security breach, which was described
by Olaf Scholz, the chancellor, as “very
serious”. The Kremlin sought to exploit
the leak yesterday and summoned the
German ambassador to the foreign
ministry in Moscow.
“The recording itself suggests that
the Bundeswehr is discussing ... plans to
strike Russian territory,” Dmitry Pes-
kov, President Putin’s spokesman, said.
The conversations “once again high-
light the direct involvement of the col-
lective West in the conflict in Ukraine”.
Tuesday March 5 2024 | the times
the engine blades supplied by a French
company wearing out.
The Commons defence select com-
mittee heard that a fault had been rep-
orted within the engine as long ago as
March 2022 that meant that the aircraft
could only fly for 1,700 hours, instead of
the expected 4,000 hours. Although
there are 28 Hawk T2 jets in the fleet, of
which about 20 were planned to be
available daily, only about eight were
available each day throughout 2022-23.
The aircraft replaced the Hawk T1 jet in
2009.
Over a three-year period starting last
year, a total of 15 RAF pilots will be
trained on the Euro-Nato Joint Jet Pilot
Training Programme in the US. This is
in addition to six who were already
being trained as part of a previously
funded agreement. The course lasts
18 months and includes basic and
advanced flying training at a cost per
trainee of £2 million. Overseas training
in the US was part of UK pilot training
before the problems arose with the
Hawk T2’s engine but sources con-
firmed that more pilots were being
trained in the US as a result of the
problem.
Furthermore, the RAF is paying the
Italians to train 12 of its pilots over three
years at the International Flight Train-
ing School as a direct result of the Hawk
problem. The first course for two train-
ees began in July last year and the
course for advanced fast-jet flying
training is expected to last nine months.
The cost per trainee is about £2.2 mil-
lion, taking the total paid to Italy to
£26.4 million for the training in Italy
alone.
An MoD spokesman said: “Overseas
pilot training is routine and we con-
tinue to train sufficient numbers of
pilots for the front line. As part of the
mitigation measures to manage the
impact of Hawk T2 engine availability,
a small additional number of UK pilots
are being trained abroad.”
Scholz’s spokesman described Mos-
cow’s accusations as “absurd propagan-
da”. His government has verified the
authenticity of the call on February 19
but blamed Moscow for eavesdropping
and promised a swift investigation into
the breach.
Lord Dannatt, former head of the
British army, told Times Radio that he
could not comment on the claims about
Ingo Gerhartz was
one of those
involved in the
leaked call
British troops but said that the German
officers talking on an unencrypted call
should face censure. “I was very dis-
appointed to read that story,” he said.
Tobias Ellwood, the former chair-
man of the Commons defence commit-
tee, said that the Russians had leaked
the call to highlight divisions between
the military and Scholz.