Typhoon fighters have been launched in response to aircraft “approaching the UK area of interest” for the second day in a row, the Royal Air Force has confirmed.

As with yesterday, the jets were launched from RAF Lossiemouth in Moray, supported by a Voyager air-to-air refuelling tanker stationed at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.

An RAF spokesperson said:

“Quick Reaction Alert Typhoon fighters from RAF Lossiemouth, supported by a Voyager tanker from RAF Brize Norton, have been launched against aircraft approaching the UK area of interest. We will not be offering any additional detail on this ongoing operation until complete.”

What is the difference between the UK area of interest and UK sovereign airspace? Good question, an important question too.

Sovereign airspace is that airspace above the territory of a nation and the area of interest includes international airspace for which a country is responsible in some way, such as the provision of air traffic control services. Entering an area of interest is fine, routine and something normal. Entering national sovereign airspace is not. These aircraft are not likely to enter British sovereign airspace.

How does Quick Reaction Alert tasking work?

According to the RAF website, the National Air Defence Operations Centre (NADOC) at RAF Air Command, High Wycombe collates information from radar sites across the UK and from civilian air traffic and intelligence agencies.

“They decide the threat is sufficient to scramble Typhoon jets and pass the order to to the Control and Reporting Centres (CRCs) at RAF Scampton and RAF Boulmer. The CRCs have direct contact with the pilots at RAF Lossiemouth and pass on the scramble message. Pilots at RAF Coningsby are ordered to standby in the cockpits of their Typhoons. RAF Coningsby is the second QRA station in the UK.”

Essentially, the jets and their crews are at a moments notice to launch and intercept unresponsive or dangerous aircraft.

Why does the UK intercept aircraft outside of its own airspace?

Andy Netherwood, a former Royal Air Force pilot, explained why this is done.

“A country’s sovereign airspace extends 12 miles beyond its coastline, sitting above its territorial waters.  However, there are 3 main reasons why unknown or potentially hostile aircraft must be intercepted before they reach this point.”

All airspace around the world is divided into Flight Information Regions (FIRs). Each FIR is managed by a controlling authority (in this case the UK) that has responsibility for ensuring that air traffic services are provided to the aircraft flying within it. UK Airspace is divided into three FIRs; London, Scottish and Shanwick Oceanic.

“The first is flight safety. Whilst sovereign airspace only extends 12 miles from the coastline, countries are responsible for ensuring the safety of civil aviation, including the provision of ATC services, within areas known as Flight Information Regions or FIRs. These extend well beyond the 12-mile limit. Russian long range aviation often transits the London and Scottish FIRs without filing a flight plan, talking to ATC or ‘squawking’ (operating their transponders).  This makes them effectively invisible to civilian ATC and is very dangerous as airliners are also flying through this airspace.  By shadowing Russian aircraft, the intercepting aircraft can show ATC where they are, allowing controllers to move airliners safely out of the way.

The second reason is because of the speed at which aircraft travel.  An aircraft flying at 600 knots will travel 12 miles in little over a minute.  Waiting until an unknown or hostile aircraft has entered sovereign airspace before intercepting is too late. It leaves insufficient time to safely carry out the intercept, visually identify the aircraft, provide all the required information back to decision-makers, and carry out any necessary action. Russian aircraft will normally be intercepted by the Norwegian Air Force and then handed over to RAF aircraft ensuring they are continually shadowed.”

A Typhoon is pictured intercepting a Russian aircraft in the UK FIR.

“The final reason is to demonstrate capability and intent. One of the reasons Russia carries out these exercises is to test NATO and the UK. A failure to intercept would be interpreted as weakness and encourage further probing.”

For more on why the RAF intercept aircraft around the UK, you can read the full piece.

This happens often, doesn’t it?

No doubt you’ve probably noticed dozens of comments on our Facebook page saying something like, ‘nothing new’ or ‘This happens all the time it is not news!’.

While this is a common occurrence, we believe that it’s important for the public to know that. After all, if it isn’t reported frequently, how are people to know it’s a frequent occurrence and not something to worry about?

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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55 COMMENTS

    • Asraam and meteor. If meteor not carried then AMRAAM. Plus canons and fuel drop tanks. Each Typhoon carries enough ordance to shot down 8-12 Tupolev Bears.
      Batch 1 typhoons wherever possible should be used for these intercepts. The Bears are ancient aircraft. The Russians dont care about fuselage age, flight hours etc just so long as it can fly it will be put up.

      • They also carry a full drum of 27mm, plus the full suite of flares and chaff (which now includes Leonardo’s Britecloud).

      • Those Bears are built like brick out houses. Airframe will go on and on, it’s spares and availability that is the problem. Even the Soviets over engineered their aircraft back in the day before CAD design.

    • Judging by recent photos and YouTube videos taken by folks at Coningsby.It looks like only 4 x ASRAAM are carried. Possibly because visual identification is required as part of the rules of engagement for QRA.

  2. Is Vlad just trying to attack us via airframe hours.

    This was why knackering the T1’s for QRA made sense to me.

    It left the T2’s and T3’s alone for other better things.

    What you really need to deal with a Bear – presence and a few decent A2A missiles?

    • QRA doesn’t affect airframe hours. If anything, aircraft fly less when holding QRA. The sameTyphoons would by flying everyday as part of routine training flights on the operational sqns, or the OCU, so they would still be flying daily, often twice a day. Typhoons are good for another 20 odd years, so wouldn’t worry about flying hours.

      • Perhaps the point was that T1’s might be more suitable for QRA than the latter tranches?

        I accept correction but weren’t they the air defence version with the later batches more multirole?

        Seems to make sense to keep them in QRA roles rather than divest of them completely.

        • Typhoon is operated as a whole fleet, with aircraft moved around depending on the requirement. It might well be T1’s doing QRA, and another week could be T2/3’s. Loosing the T1 won’t really affect operational output, as T1’s are not used for out of area operations. If anything aircraft held on QRA use less airframe hour’s, because they generally fly less than the aircraft on the operational squadrons or the OCU which might fly twice a day. Typhoon is not getting worn out generally flying straight and level next to a Bear. These aircraft are designed to be used, not sat around at Coningsby and Lossiemouth. QRA could intercept Bears every day, and the fleet is still good to past 2040. And the RAF also now has the option of potentially using F35B, as it also has an outstanding A2A capability. unlike the Harrier and Tornado GR4 before it.

        • It’s also easier for the RAF to keep its Typhoon pilots and ground crews current on the Typhoon T2/3 fleet. As it’s very different climbing into a T1 aircraft. Avionic functionality is different. The way the information is displayed to the pilots is different, HOTAS is different ect. Always a reason behind these decisions that isn’t always obvious.

          • Thanks Robert,

            That’s very informative, specifically where you mention in your second part, the differences between T1 and T2/3. I get it.

            Cheers!

          • You are welcome. In a perfect world we would be buying more Typhoons to replace the T1 fleet. But the investment is going into enhancing theT2/3 fleet with some very capable upgrades. We need the cash for growing the F35 fleet and investment into Tempest and new weapons coming online. We can’t do it all.

          • This link might be useful?

            “For many years it was JASDF policy to sortie four F-15Js or other fighters to meet the Chinese planes. But all that short-notice flying takes a toll on pilots and planes. To the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, that in part is the point.

            I think China wants to keep the JASDF off-balance and reactive, wear out its aircraft and aircrew, gain training and keep the pressure up daily,” Peter Layton, an analyst with the Griffith Asia Institute in Australia, told CNN last year.

            Japan’s 200 F-15s and their crews have suffered the most. “The in-service life of Japan’s F-15J fleet is now almost a decision that lies with China,” Layton said.

            It doesn’t help that the JASDF is replacing half of the F-15s—plus other fighter types—with around 160 new F-35s. And the F-35 isn’t exactly suited to alert duty.”

            https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2021/04/02/japan-is-about-to-waste-its-f-35s-shadowing-chinese-planes/

  3. I noticed one of our retired E-3 Sentry aircraft (ZH103) has been flying circles over northern Scotland for most of today, with a NATO E-3 off the Scottish coast too. What’s a retired aircraft doing there? Several days ago, I also noticed a Chilean airforce transport plane leave RAF Waddington – all part of the potential sale perhaps?

    • Maybe they want to run it for some hours after the(?) overhaul before flying the Atlantic.

      Or maybe a fly before you buy?

      Pure speculation.

    • My bet would be that the Russians have a large number of aircraft in the air, of many types, in support of the exercise off SW Ireland. This will be over the next 6 days. In response the UK and NATO are using it as a ‘reverse’ exercise to practice monitoring them and an E-3 is an obvious tool for that. With this rare opportunity it seems that we may have ‘borrowed’ ZH103 back for some ‘final testing’. A very good move.

      There seems to be a reasonable likelihood that, as a minimum, all Naval Aviation aircraft types will be involved, whilst VVS aircraft could also be out there, as per the Tu-95s earlier in the week, depending on the actual scope of the exercise.

      The Russians may view elements of the exercise as repaying the compliment of NATO/US aircraft checking them out in the Black and Baltic Seas. We are used to seeing a couple of Tu-160 Blackjacks trundling over the Norwegian Sea. But what if 6 flew in at Mach 2, escorted by Mig-31BMs, over the NATO group up there on their way to the exercise? Just a thought.

  4. A far out question… what would happen, if the RAF tracked aircraft in an ‘area of interest’, but did not bother to launch interceptor aircraft?

        • Really?

          I don’t think they would miss the opportunity to stir things up a bit.

          Maybe some high altitude pictures of the clock on Salisbury cathedral?

          • Why would they fly over UK sovereign airspace? The notion is preposterous. Pictures of Salisbury, or Stone Henge for that matter… they have their own satellites doing that kind of thing.

          • …or FSB intelligence officers, sorry “Sports Nutritionalists”, if the weather is right and the ground is not too slushy…

          • To them it would prove UK impotence.

            Can’t you imagine the grin on Vlad’s face if they pulled that off?

            “All Russian people want closeup aerial photo of Salisbury clock tower”

            I got that from the script for the TV interview of the pilot. He is currently getting extra training: in keeping a straight face whilst telling these huge jokes…..

          • No they are not real.

            He asked the question then asserted the answer!

            Hence, my not entirely serious response.

          • Well if she was a rather nice looking blonde or red head with ample emm…………… assets then yes

    • We have to identify any aircraft with transponders switched off who’ve not provided a flight plan for the safety of all other aircraft & our security. Could be a Russian routine sneak up, someone rogue, criminal activity or whatever. So if the identity can’t be determined we have to scramble the QRA to ID it.

  5. Could we not delay the scramble let them come into our airspace… ATC notifying, restricted airspace and then arrive and turn their crews into fishfood?

    Asking for a friend.

    • I would suggest you missed the point about arriving just a tad late and turning the Bear crews into fish food… oops.

  6. On Sky there is Russian footage of the the pilot in the Bear with the Typhoon out the window to port. The Russian pilot is wearing a 1950s style orange space suit and is holding the stick tightly as the aircraft buffets up and down. In short the Bear is a piece of junk.

    • Point is thought that in a hot situation they are sitting ducks to any an all missile systems.

      Detection from a considerable range is aural.

      RCS would be the size of wide-body civil jet. Identification from the props and rotational directions wouldn’t tax the simplest systems.

      Yes, if you were going to hang around and use the missiles as a surprise 1st strike then it might have some military value.

      Although as a tool for annoying NATO members its cheapness and low operations costs make it peerless?

      • They would be intercepted by the Norwegian QRA F35s before they got to the UKs area of responsibility if the intelligence said they are playing silly buggers. They are tracked pretty much as soon as the takeoff.

    • Why does everyone expect the UK to have the same exact armed forces as that of Russia. We will never fight them alone. Our armed forces will never be as large as theirs but they don’t need to be. NATO’s equivalent of the bear is the B52.

    • The raf decided that long range bombers didn’t have a role for the uk. When we had them they were to drop nukes or lots of dumb bombs. Nukes went to the navy. Dumb bombs got smart and tomahawk and storm shadow came along.
      We could of keep versions of the Vulcan or victor bombers in service and developed new bombers but they just don’t have a place in uk forces. The cost would also have had to come from losing other abilities

  7. It’s about time the Irish let the RAF patrol out of Shannon Airport – enough American military pass through there every week – with a stratic outpost in ROI – would deter Russia using the high North Atlantic for the fly overs

    • There is zero chance a permanent U.K. military structure would be politically acceptable in Ireland, and if the U.K. felt the need they could always stick it in Belfast and deal with the security headaches themselves.

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