The Royal Navy has released a first Request For information to gauge the capacity and capability of the industrial base to provide a new solution for persistent, 24-hour Airborne Early Warning coverage for the fleet and in particular for the Carrier Strike Group.
At present the AEW capability of the Royal Navy is ensured by 10 CROWSNEST radar kits, centered on a modernized Thales SEARCHWATER radar. The kits can be installed on any of the 30 MERLIN HM2 helicopters in service with the Fleet Air Arm in 820 and 814 Naval Air Squadrons, the frontline units using the type. 820 NAS specifically is the “carriers’ Squadron” by mission.
Despite first deploying operationally only in 2021 on HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH for her inaugural deployment and planning to achieve Full Operational Capability only this year with the latest software release, CROWSNEST is meant to be a short-lived, stop-gap program due for replacement already around the end of the decade. Formally, the Out Of Service date for the project was 2029, although this was in no small measure because MERLIN HM2’s own notional OSD was, and temporarily still is, set in the same year.
The MoD is working on a further Life Extension Programme that will bring the MERLIN OSD to 2040, but the Royal Navy still hopes to move past CROWSNEST in the early 2030s in order to remove the AEW burden from the MERLIN fleet, enabling it to focus fully on ASW, and in order to deploy a better, more modern capability.
The Royal Navy specifically hopes to deploy an AEW capability based on drones with much greater endurance. Ideally, the drone should be fixed wing, which would also imply a much greater cruise altitude, in itself a major improvement for detection range and performance.
Rotary wing drones could still be part of the answer, however, particularly if the 3-ton PROTEUS uncrewed rotorcraft that Leonardo is building for first flight in the summer will prove successful and become a program of record. PROTEUS is intended to demonstrate the potential for a large helicopter drone to supplement and complement MERLIN in ASW, AEW (potentially) and cargo carrying roles.
The current AEW RFI does not prescribe what the solution must be, so industry has the maximum freedom to put forward different solutions. The entries are expected by 6 May 2025 and successive market engagement will help refine pricing and timelines.
It is notable, however, that the Royal Navy is currently projecting a cost of “between 500 million and 1.5 billion pounds” with a contract start date “between May 2026 and May 2027”, with an estimate for the entry in service of “2030-2035”.
To draw a direct comparison, the most recent estimate of the through-life cost for CROWSNEST is 504 million pounds, so the budget assumption is significant.
In its internal studies for the future of naval aviation, the Royal Navy has also been seriously considering the possibility of retrofitting the QE-class carriers with arresting wires and potentially a catapult system for drones, if not for manned aircraft. These activities are known as Project ARK ROYAL.
The option that probably has the most chances right now, however, is the proposed “SEA PROTECTOR”, an adaptation of the MQ-9B of the Royal Air Force for working off the QE-class carriers. General Atomics promises that a wing kit in development can bring Short Take Off and Landing capability to the baseline PROTECTOR, building on what demonstrated with the MOJAVE STOL demonstrator, which notably took off and landed on HMS PRINCE OF WALES in November 2023.
At the Farnborough Air Show 2024, Air Commodore Alex Hicks, RAF’s head of capability delivery for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), had declared that the hope was to get to a SEA PROTECTOR capability in 2028, but noted that the project was not yet funded and would be subject to the Strategic Defense Review, to be released later this Spring.
PROTECTOR seems headed for a more “maritime” role, initially as a complement to P-8 POSEIDON in a NATO-focused role over the North Atlantic and Arctic. GA-ASI is working to demonstrate how MQ-9 could operate with sonobuouys for ASW and the Royal Navy is investing to support Ultra Maritime’s work to develop appropriate sonobuoys.
GA-ASI has also advanced proposals for podded AESA radars for AEW capability on the MQ-9B, notably proposing it as a solution for the NATO AEW Force needs for 2035 as the E-3 fleet is replaced.
Depending on how the SDR will develop and how these various initiatives continue to evolve, a STOL MQ-9 “SEA PROTECTOR” could bring long range ASW and AEW to the Royal Navy carriers in the future.
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