An FLKA is a Funny Looking King Air as any fule kno. Those splendid people who helped expand the meaning of the Greenland-originated word "anorak" caught another one on the ground at Hawarden airport in England the other day.

This particular FLKA is one of four to be used by the British Army (not the RAF) in Afghanistan. It's based on a Hawker Beechcraft Super King Air 350ER, with extra fuel tanks above the engine nacelles, a higher gross weight, and big ventral fins to keep the pointy end going forwards if one of the PT6As corpses during a hot, high, heavy take-off.

Operational equipment clearly includes an electro-optical turret, lots of signals intelligence gear and a missile-approach warning system (presumably combined with flares, since otherwise it is an imminent-demise warning system). There may be a radar in there as well.

Other FLKAs include the US Army's C-12R Aerial Reconnaissance Multisensor System (ARMS), which has flown with Task Force Odin to track insurgent activities.

The Iraqi Army also uses a similar aircraft, with General Atomics' Lynx radar, and a new US-based operation, Avwatch, has now been formed to operate apparently piloted aircraft for homeland security missions.

FLKAs - and similar types based on different airframes - are a curious creature, representing the fusion of UAV sensors with manned aircraft. The demand for UAVs has created the payloads for the job, and the fact that there are never enough UAVs has created the need for these aircraft.

Not only has training and deployment of UAV units lagged demand, but if they are operating over any substantial distance they start to hog a lot of satellite bandwidth. The FLKA, with sensor operators, intelligence specialists and linguists in the cabin, is autonomous.

For homeland security, the FLKA has two other advantages:  there are no problems about UAVs in civil airspace, and (particularly in North America) pilots are really, really cheap. Flying patrol orbits over the Gulf of Mexico is a very fast way to build up hours until an airline will offer you a job.

Back in the 1950s, Britain's tiny Saunders-Roe company was building the rocket-powered SR.53 fighter. Designer Maurice Brennan, according to some of my old Flight colleagues, used to defend the concept against missile fanatics by remarking that "the guidance system weighs 200 pounds and drinks gin." That argument seems to be valid today.

Pics: Chris Hall of Hawarden Spotters, US Army. Tip: Jackonicko