Royal Air Force personnel have successfully completed Exercise Agile Owl, a week long exercise designed to test resilience, operational effectiveness and the ability to generate combat air power from multiple locations.
The exercise saw both RAF Coningsby and RAF Lossiemouth challenged through a series of realistic operational scenarios aimed at testing continuity of operations during periods of disruption.
Alongside the station-focused activity, the Typhoon Air Wing exercised its ability to deploy aircraft and personnel away from their main operating bases, including Kinloss Barracks which is no longer an active airfield. This demonstrates the flexibility and agility required to sustain air operations from dispersed locations.
The ability to disperse aircraft and personnel to protect operational capability is pivotal in maintaining national security.
"Exercise Agile Owl has provided an excellent opportunity to test our ability and capacity to operate away from the home base. The current operational climate requires us to react and deploy at short notice, and it is essential that we demonstrate our ability to support both our aircraft and, more importantly, our people."
Group Captain Paul Hanson
Typhoon Air Wing Commander
Recent conflicts have highlighted the importance of maintaining the ability to operate effectively from challenging and unfamiliar environments. The ongoing war in Ukraine, alongside recent tensions in the Middle East, has reinforced the need for armed forces to remain agile, adaptable and ready to respond in rapidly changing circumstances.
"The exercise gave us the opportunity to explore our capacity to react to threat scenarios while simultaneously supporting both operations at RAF Coningsby and deployed locations. I'm proud of the way our people attacked the problems, fully engaging with the scenarios and confidently resolving a range of challenges as they arose. Lessons identified during the exercise will be used to further strengthen procedures, enhance resilience and ensure the continued ability of both Coningsby and our sister station at RAF Lossiemouth to support UK and NATO defence commitments.”
Group Captain Andy Hampshire
Station Commander RAF Coningsby
Dispersed operations also complicate an adversary's ability to identify, target and disrupt critical military capabilities, helping to ensure that combat air power can continue to be generated when and where it is needed to maintain national security.
“This exercise has been a truly collaborative exercise, incorporating multiple platforms, units, and personnel from across the Air Wings, Air Bases, and the Civilian Agencies.
This exercise has demonstrated our ability to successfully disperse our aircraft, enable dispersed locations, sustain our aircraft and personnel whilst maintaining operations, and finally recover in good order back to our home bases. It has also provided a great learning environment to allow us to refine our plans and shape our training, so that we are fully prepared for whatever the future may hold.”
Wing Commander Sharon
Exercise Coordinator at RAF Lossiemouth
By demonstrating our ability to maintain operational effectiveness in challenging environments, the Royal Air Force reassures the British public and international partners that it remains ready to fly, fight and win, protecting the UK, its interests and its allies whenever called upon to do so.
