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<p><strong>The Rt Hon Mark Francois: </strong></p><p> </p><p>The number of sorties
in which RAF crews have utilised a USAF Reaper to undertake a UK Sortie in Afghanistan
for each year between 2008 and 2014 is given in the following table.</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p>Year</p></td><td><p>Number
of United Kingdom Sorties utilising a USAF Air Vehicle</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2008</p></td><td><p>2</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2009</p></td><td><p>21</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2010</p></td><td><p>4</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2011</p></td><td><p>64</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2012</p></td><td><p>180</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2013</p></td><td><p>56</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2014-January
to August Inclusive</p></td><td><p>192</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p> </p><p>For
the majority of occasions this was due to short term unserviceability or routine scheduled
servicing of a UK Reaper. The increased usage in 2012 was due to an increase in ISAF
tasking, coinciding with a period of reduced UK airframe availability. This resulted
in reduced resilience to cover short-term unserviceabilities from within the UK Reaper
force. The increased usage in 2014 was due to further increased ISAF tasking utilising
the crews from the UK Additional Reaper Capability. The additional UK aircrews and
ISAF requirement to start the new task lines were in place prior to the additional
UK airframes being prepared for operations in theatre. Consequently, while the new
UK airframes were temporarily unavailable for tasking, the additional ISAF task lines
with UK crews were flown utilising USAF aircraft.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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