RAF Leeming
visit by the
23 November 2017
The first and major part of our visit was to the 90 Signals Unit
HQ inside the Bernard Building which was officially opened in
October 2009 as a purpose built combined office and workshop to
bring the units multiple tasking under one roof . We were
briefed on the units’ current roles and operations by the ‘Boss’
, Group Captain Andy Cooksley who had previously served with the
unit and had returned to assume command in September 2016 . The
unit moved to Leeming from Brize Norton and also incorporated
assets from Sealand and is now spread throughout the UK with
teams at Brize Norton , Digby , Henlow , Lossiemouth , Odiham ,
Waddington and Wittering as well as in the Middle East and Gulf
States and 90SU personnel very often find themselves to be some
of the ‘first boots on the ground’ when it comes to setting up
new bases overseas .
With the subject of ‘fake news’ very much in the real news world
it was no surprise to find that 90SU are also on the front line
when it comes to combatting this as well as their involvement in
cyber ops with 591 Signals Unit based at Digby , another 90SU
asset . As part of the Joint Service Signals Unit , 591 are the
RAF equivalent of ‘cyber ninjas’ and work in tandem with CylSOC
, the Air Cyber and Information Services Ops Centre at Leeming
and a lot of their hi-tech equipment and methods are developed
and built in-house at Leeming . To allow the unit to concentrate
on it’s core activities it is gradually handing over it’s
airfield radio and radar support to Aquila , a joint venture
between NATS and Thales which will provide full Air Traffic
Management to the MOD both in the UK and overseas .
Our visit to 90SU finished with a visit to the sharp end of
their ops as part of Exercise Agile Eagle being held at Leeming
and housed on the western side of the airfield which had
previously housed the now disbanded 10 Field Squadron (RE)
airfield repair unit . The
RAF Leeming 135 Expeditionary Air Wing were in an operational
scenario somewhere in the Middle East with Operations being run
by one team whilst in another building the tasking decisions
being made by Ops were being overseen by another team who had
the ability to counter-command anything and everything to see
how the Ops team dealt with the changes or not ! In-between the
two and providing all of the technical support were of course ,
90SU .
Gate
ZH552
Tornado F3
Hangar 3 :
RTP
ZA458/024
Tornado GR4
complete
ZA548
Tornado GR4
stripped airframe , special colour scheme , 31 Sqdn 100th
Anniversary 1915-2015 .Post RTP this airframe hulk will be going
to
Boscombe Down .
ZD744/092
Tornado GR4
31 Sqdn
Whilst flying alongside
ZA560 Voodoo 01 this aircraft suffered multiple bird strikes and
diverted into Leeming whilst flying as Voodoo 02 of 31 Sqdn ,
Marham , in the afternoon of Thursday 15 November .
Apron
XX332/CD
Hawk T1A
Other Tornado airframes
currently with RTP in the HAS site are ;
ZA369
GR4A
ZA406
GR4
ZA453
ZA462
ZA550
ZA559
ZD739
ZD890
ZG707
GR4A
ZG750
Pinky
ZG777
GR4
ZG779
David Thompson
