Snow Sentinel

By Pilot Officer Owen Cheverton - RAF Waddington
Winner - Amateur Category

The Sentinel R1 is the RAF's latest fixed wing aircraft to enter service and is pictured here in the snow at its home at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire. The Sentinel has a surveillance role in peacetime, wartime and in crisis operations. The Sentinel's Advance Stand-Off Radar provides long-range, battlefield-intelligence and target-imaging for the use of ground forces in near-real time.

The radar on the Sentinel works in all weathers, day and night, and can even 'see' through cloud by looking at the ground and viewing the target area from high level. The radar transmits pulses which enables the on-board computers to build a synthetic picture of the target area. The equipment is so sophisticated it is able to produce a near photograph-quality image of the ground from radar readings.