The Royal Saudi Air Force [RSAF] was established in 1950 during the reign of Abd al Aziz. Its early air operations had been under control of the army. In its initial years, the air force was influenced chiefly by the British, who provided aircraft and advisers and helped train Saudi pilots and maintenance personnel in the kingdom and in Britain. United States influence, emanating from the air base at Dhahran that was leased by the United States from 1952 to 1962, was also pivotal to the early development of the Saudi air force. Some United States aircraft were transferred to the RSAF from units operating at Dhahran and the United States Military Training Mission at Dhahran trained Saudi pilots and maintenance personnel.
In 1972 the first of 114 Northrop F-5s were delivered to the RSAF and, as of 1992, the air force still used three squadrons of later versions of the F-5 in the fighter-ground attack role, one squadron for reconnaissance, and a number of aircraft as advanced jet trainers. In 1984 first deliveries were taken of the more advanced F-15s. By 1992 the SAF had seventy-eight F-15s, including fighter conversion trainers.
As a result of the United States rebuff, Saudi Arabia turned to Britain to meet its requirements. In mid-1988, it was announced that as part of a huge transaction, Saudi Arabia would acquire Tornado fighters from Britain in their strike and air defense configurations, plus Hawk jet trainers and Pilatus PC-9 trainers built in Switzerland and outfitted in Britain. Project Al Yamamah is Britain’s largest export contract assisting the Royal Saudi Air Force to become self sufficient. As of early 1992, three of the RSAF fighter-ground attack squadrons were equipped with Tornadoes and three squadrons were equipped with F-5Es. Two air defense squadrons were equipped with Tornadoes and three squadrons were equipped with F-15Cs. The three transport squadrons were equipped with C-130s in various versions and CASA C-212s, a medium transport of Spanish design. The two helicopter squadrons employed a variety of smaller rotary-wing aircraft. Undaunted by its previous failure to establish an assured supply of combat aircraft from the United States, Saudi Arabia announced in late 1991 that it had placed an order with McDonnell Douglas for an additional seventy-two F-15s. It appeared doubtful whether the sale would be approved by the United States administration and the Congress.
Because ground-based radar could not provide adequate advanced warning of attacks on sensitive targets along the Persian Gulf, particularly from nearby Iranian air bases, Saudi Arabia ordered five E-3A AWACS aircraft in 1981. To allay Israel's concerns, the aircraft were equipped specifically for the defensive needs of the Persian Gulf and Red Sea areas only. The first aircraft reached operational status in 1987 in time to assist United States naval operations in the tanker war in the Persian Gulf. Training and support services were provided by the Boeing Corporation and a United States Air Force team. Congress required that the United States have substantial control over the use of the airplanes and a sharing of the AWACS data.
In 1985 Saudi Arabia also contracted with a consortium headed by Boeing for the Peace Shield command, control, communications, and intelligence (C3I) system. Its purpose was to link information collected by AWACS and ground-based surveillance radar with fighters and ground air defense, including the I-Hawk SAMs, to provide integrated air defense against attacks across the gulf and Red Sea and from the direction of Yemen. In 1991 it was announced that the Hughes Aircraft Corporation had assumed management of the project, which had been subject to delays in its completion.
As of 1992, the first line combat air strength of the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) consisted of some 200 aircraft, organized into six fighter/ground-attack squadrons and five fighter-air defense squadrons. The personnel strength of the air force was estimated to be about 18,000. Although modest in comparison to the air power of neighboring countries, the RSAF was considered to be the most modern and effective of the Saudi services. Its mission was to defend the economic installations and the widely scattered population centers of Saudi Arabia against attack and, particularly, to repel air attacks or amphibious assaults against the country's highly vulnerable oil pumping stations, processing and loading facilities, and oil platforms in the Persian Gulf.
The first-line combat fighters are deployed at four key airfields: Dhahran, to defend the main oil facilities of the Persian Gulf; At Taif, covering the ports and holy cities of the lower Red Sea; Khamis Mushayt, defending the Yemeni border zone; and Tabuk, to defend the key ports of the upper Red Sea area and Saudi air space adjacent to Jordan, Syria, and Israel. These four bases and the air base at Riyadh were protected from air attack by Improved Hawk (I-Hawk) SAMs, hardened aircraft shelters, and underground command posts.
Although the Saudi Air Force it still has over 350 combat aircraft, operational capabilities declined during the 1990s' with the F-5EIIs and other F-5s losing substantial operational capability.
Peace Shield
The Peace Shield system allows the Royal Saudi Air Force to manage its airborne and ground-based resources. It includes a Central Command Operations Center, regional centers, long-range radars, and a number of remote facilities. Raytheon, as the system developer, continues to sustain the system under a direct contract to the Royal Saudi Air Force.
Saudi Arabia buys arms directly from American corporations, bypassing Pentagon middlemen. Such purchases include the $300 million upgrade and support system for the Peace Shield radar system that the country bought directly from Raytheon in 1998. The 2002 Peace Shield Radar Upgrade [cancelled in August 2003] was market survey being conducted by the Air Force to determine potential sources capable of fulfulling a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) requirement for the upgrade of the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) long range radars (AN/FPS-117) located through out the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). All seventeen (17) radars will be modernized to provide better performance, and obsolete equipment will be replaced as part of the upgrade program. The FPS-117(V)3 L-band air surveillance radar is designed to provide real-time 3D data on all targets within the surveillance volume. The primary radar uses an antenna array with electronically scanning elevation beam and mechanical rotation in azimuth. As an option, the Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR) equipment will be replaced with modern Monopulse SSR (MSSR) equipment. The new equipment will retain Mode-4 capability and will allow Mode-S upgrade at a later date. A Systems Requirements Document (SRD) will be provided to the contractors as part of the Final Request for Proposal (RFP) that is intended to provide the performance requirements of the radar. The contractor will provide all necessary engineering services to fabricate, install and deliver to the RSAF upgraded radars that satisfy the SRD requirements and to train RSAF personnel in operation and maintenance of the equipment. The contractor will provide all necessary tools, spare parts, test equipment and materials to allow RSAF to run full operation and maintenance of all seventeen radars including radar characteristics monitoring. The contractor will maximize the use of state-of-the-art, Non-Developmental Items (NDI) hardware for the prime mission equipment, while providing highly reliable and easily maintainable radar that meets all applicable SRD requirements. The radar equipment will be fully integrated into the existing Peace Shield System, and the radar performance will be verified in accordance with the test methods specified in the SRD.
In 2003 Peace Shield work began on developing an upgraded High-Speed Network for the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) at locations throughout the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The High-Speed Network (HSN) will provide a modern communications backbone for the Royal Saudi Air Force's (RSAF’s) Command, Control, Communications, Computer and Intelligence (C4I) System. The complete RSAF C4I High Speed Network includes seven major nodes, the use of SATCOM at the 7 HSN Nodes, and IADs at 17 radar sites. The major nodes of the networks will be located at the RSAF Main Operations Bases (MOBs), Jeddah and Riyadh. It will ugrade HUB terminal for E1 connectivity to the HSN Nodes at Riyadh, Khamis Mushayt, Taif, Tabuk, and Dhahran. In addition to C4I Systems, the network will interconnect other communications facilities on each airbase, RSAF Headquarters (HQ), and air traffic/early warning radar data from radar sites located throughout the Kingdom. This includes work at three Eastern Sector sites, five Northern Sector sites, and three Western Sector sites. The network is to provide a secure high-speed broadband Wide-Area Network (WAN) to support the increasing data networking requirements of the RSAF C4I System. Increased demand on bandwidth to support current operations and projected new multimedia applications are beyond the capabilities of the current network and necessitate its upgrade. The network will maintain compatibility with the existing RSAF C4I communications architecture. It will utilize existing airbase-to-airbase fiber optic connections, existing Satellite Communications (SATCOM) and leased Saudi Telecom Corporation (STC) links for connections beyond the reach of the current fiber facilities. Links to locations within air bases will either be direct fiber optic connections or remote circuits utilizing currently available copper lines or point-to-point microwave. The network will support 10/100/1000 Mb/s switched Local Area Network (LAN) overlays employing Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802 Q/p Virtual LAN (VLAN) and Quality of Service (QoS) standards. High-speed encryption will be provided to secure communications over the High Speed Network. New Video Teleconferencing (VTC) equipment and upgrade of fiber optics and the existing SATCOM equipment at locations identified in the System Requirements Document (SRD) will be part of this effort. The legacy VTC equipment will be interoperable with the new system.
موضوع: القوات الجويه الملكيه السعوديه 
الجمعة 27 فبراير 2009 - 20:27
