Britain's Role In Anti-IS Mission Explained
Updated: 4:37pm UK, Saturday 27 September 2014
Codenamed Operation Shader, the British military action now under way sees UK warplanes swap their surveillance role in Iraq for combat missions.
There are six Tornado GR4s based at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, and on missions they will be armed with Paveway and Brimstone missiles capable of hitting moving targets.
Having carried out reconnaissance missions over Iraq for the last six weeks, the pilots know the terrain well.
The combat operation is directed out of Qatar from the Al Udeid airbase - shared by both the British and US.
The man heading the RAF mission is Air commodore Al Gillespie, but it is the US directing the growing coalition air operation in Iraq, which also includes Australia, Denmark, and France.
Former RAF navigator John Nichol, who flew in the 1991 Gulf War, told Sky News: "The Americans will be telling each different nation what the target list is, where to patrol, what sort of weapons might be needed, and then they will be launched into the air."
While the Tornado aircraft is 40 years old, Mr Nichol said: "It's been hugely updated. The big updates are the weapons systems.
"When I was flying it was very much what I would call 'dumb bombs'. The weapons that this GR4 deploys are all precision-guided, very, very accurate munitions."
While the planes are capable of flying quicker than the speed of sound, on patrol the planes would travel at around 300-400mph to conserve fuel.
The Tornados fly in pairs and take around two hours to reach northern Iraq from Cyprus.
The two-man crews can be on board for up to eight hours in the cramped cockpits.
The on-board technology allows them to operate at low level, day or night and in poor weather.
During the recent reconnaissance missions the jets often refuelled in mid-air by connecting to fuel lines from an RAF Voyager plane - like "trying to refuel your car on the motorway at night, at 600mph, when the petrol station is doing 600mph", according to Mr Nichol.
The crews are highly skilled and normally very experienced, who have flown many times over Iraq in previous deployments.
Mr Nichol said: "These are young men and women. They are trained to do a job. They want to do the job.
"I compare it to a firefighter. You never want to see anyone's house burning down but its your job to put those flames out and that's what they are getting a chance to do.
"Some of them are battle-hardened veterans, but you have the younger members there as well.
"There's an excitement about what you are going to go and do but a reality and a knowledge of what the cost could be as well."
In the absence of IS command and control centres, he believed the air crews would be looking at the ground in "real time" for targets.
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