Royal Air Force A400M Atlas transport aircraft from the Air Mobility Force enable and sustain enduring UK military operations in the Middle East with regular flights across the region carrying cargo and occasionally passengers.
Since the start of Operation Shader in 2014 the RAF’s Air Mobility Force has had a detachment forward based in support this Op and the even longer running Operation Kipion, UK’s Maritime Counter-Piracy and Smuggling support, together with the Freedom of Navigation mission in the region.
This forward detachment currently consists of a Voyager and an A400M and conducts roles and activities that sustain these enduring Operations together with other UK military activity across the region. One key element of the detachment is regular flights of the A400M known as the Middle East Intra-Theatre Transport Service, or MITS for short. These flights carry cargo to various British bases across the region.
MITS flights set off from RAF Akrotiri, where the aircraft is prepared for its sortie. Refuelling is carried out by the locally based Airfield Support Squadron, freight pallets are then loaded by a combined team of Movers drawn from the Joint Movements Squadron and deployed personnel from the UK Mobile Air Movements Squadron[1] (UK MAMS).
On board the aircraft for such a trip around the region is a small Air Mobility Protection Team drawn from the RAF Police and the RAF Regiment.
Describing a typical recent MITS sortie one of the A400M pilots said: “This is a bread and butter job for us, it keeps everything else going and is therefore a very important role, but it is just one of the many tasks that we do on the Squadron.”
This MITS flights arrived at its first destination, 902 Expeditionary Air Wing, where some of the seven pallets of freight were unloaded and other pallets of equipment from a recent Royal Marine exercise were loaded for return to the UK. Loading and unloading was completed by a team of RAF detachment personnel and some movement staff from UKMAMS who fly on these sorties to support these activities.
After a short flight to 906 EAW, further unloading and loading was carried out together with an overnight stop. The following day the A400M departed 906 EAW on its round robin for the final delivery of freight and a return to RAF Akrotiri.
“These flights carried out by the A400M are an essential element of the work of the RAF’s deployed Air Mobility Force.
“The flights demonstrate the delivery of Tactical Military Air Transport, which is just one of the ways by which AMF provides a wide range of logistical and mission-enabling capabilities across the globe for Defence.”
Squadron Leader Hermolle
The Air Mobility Force Detachment Commander in the Region
The recent MITS flight was flown by a mixed crew drawn from 30 and LXX Sqns, normally based at RAF Brize Norton, with personnel forward deploying for four weeks; Squadron personnel expect to do several deployments per year. This, in addition to all of the other global activities the RAF supports alongside world-wide exercises and other operations.
