The first RC-135W Rivet Joint reconnaissance aircraft for Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) arrived at RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire, early on Nov. 12, after overnight delivery from the L3 Communications facility at Greenville, Texas. The plane is known in British parlance as an Air Seeker. It’s the first time a reconnaissance aircraft of this type will be operated by a non-U.S. user. Various versions of the RC-135 conducted sensitive intelligence-gathering flights during the Cold War and continue to do so today.

Britain’s three-plane RC-135W fleet will plug a gap in signals-intelligence collection left by the June 2011 retirement of the Nimrod R.1

The RAF will receive its second and third RC-135Ws in 2015 and 2017. The aircraft have monitoring stations in the rear fuselage but won’t have a complex intel-gathering system called Helix that Britain abandoned as an economy move.

The aircraft will serve with the RAF’s No. 51 Squadron and after an initial work-up phase will enter service late next year. The RAF will receive its second and third RC-135Ws in 2015 and 2017. The aircraft have monitoring stations in the rear fuselage but won’t have a complex intel-gathering system called Helix that Britain abandoned as an economy move.

Britain’s three Rivet Joint aircraft are:

•         ZZ664 (ex-KC-135R 64-14833 c/n 18773)

•         ZZ665 (ex-KC-135R 64-14838 c/n 18778)

•         ZZ666 (ex-KC-135R 64-14840 c/n 18780)