Royal Air Force aircraft have conducted Air Maritime exercises over the Red Sea and the Baltic Sea simultaneously with the United States Navy.
Over the Baltic Sea, the Typhoons from RAF Lossiemouth joined F-35B Lightning jets from RAF Marham to carry out the exercise. On arrival in the exercise area with the USS Gravely, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, the RAF aircraft were also joined by Gripen fighters of the Czech Airforce.
During this exercise, the RAF Typhoons flew a seven hour sortie and after first refuelling from a RAF Brize Norton based Voyager, came under the control of the USS Gravely to ensure an effective integrated Air and Missile Defence was achieved to defend the ship.
"We conducted defensive air combat against adversaries simulating airborne attacks against the ship."
Typhoon Pilot, RAF Lossiemouth
Meanwhile a similar exercise was conducted over the Red Sea with the USS Gonzalez, another Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. In this exercise RAF Typhoons currently deployed as part of 83 Expeditionary Air Group flew from RAF Akrotiri to join United States Airforce F-16s to conduct exercises with the US Navy ship.
The USS Gonzalez provided maritime air control for the RAF Typhoons to practice intercepts which in turn led to the pilots carrying out fighting manoeuvres against US Airforce F-16s. Exercises such as these are therefore designed to practice a number of drills and to develop interoperability between RAF fast jets and ships of the UK’s key defence ally in different parts of the world.
