Tom Whittingham, Former Wing Commander, Maritime Security, Oman, Royal Air Force

 

Wing Commander Tom Whittingham has just retired after 34 years’ service with the Royal Air Force.  He joined as an electronics graduate and has flown combat support operations in maritime surveillance role on the Nimrod MR2, the Nimrod R1 in the electronic surveillance role and the E-3D AWACS. A graduate of the GD Aerosystems Course he completed tours at the Air Warfare Centre and Boscombe Down Mission Systems Division conducting developmental and operational test and evaluation of the Nimrod mission system and sensors.  His procurement competencies come though managing the operational requirement for a new sonobuoy system, developing an acceptance test philosophy that was subsequently adopted across all UK military procurement projects and as the ISTAR Requirements Manager within the Nimrod Integrated Project Team with responsibility for programme coherency across all UK airborne surveillance platforms. A proven strategist, Whittingham commanded the Strategy Division of the UK Joint Force Air Component HQ during it’s successful NATO accreditation before assuming a similar role within the and Allied Air Operation Centre Al Udeid supporting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.  He was appointment as directing staff on the UK Advance Command and Staff College before secondment to Oman supporting maritime security.  He contributed to deriving a national maritime security strategy, conducted operational analysis of the existing architecture and identified capability gaps and potential solutions.  He is currently working as an independent contractor at the UK Defence Academy.