The British Embassy in Doha has issued an unusually direct statement after speculation online suggested that a Royal Air Force Voyager aircraft had supported Israeli air operations over Qatar earlier this month.
The embassy said that on 9 September an RAF Voyager was operating above Doha as part of a “routine and planned exercise” with the Qatari Emiri Air Force.
According to the notice, the training focused on air-to-air refuelling, a long-established element of UK-Qatar defence cooperation.
The statement dismissed claims of a connection to Israeli actions as “baseless and false.” It added: “The UK had no knowledge of, nor played any part in, those attacks, which we condemn as a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of a key partner.” The embassy concluded with an emphatic message: “We stand with Qatar.”
Even without the diplomatic denial, there are practical reasons why the speculation does not stand up. The RAF operates the Airbus Voyager KC2 and KC3 tankers, derived from the A330 airliner. These aircraft use the Cobham 905E wing-mounted hose-and-drogue system and, on KC3 variants, an additional fuselage refuelling unit.
Israel’s fast jet fleet, however, relies on the US-style flying boom refuelling method. Aircraft such as the F-15 and F-16 are equipped with receptacles for boom transfer, not the probe-and-drogue system carried by the Voyager.
This incompatibility makes it physically impossible for the UK Voyager fleet to provide aerial refuelling to Israeli fighter jets. By contrast, the US Air Force’s KC-135 and KC-46 tankers are configured with booms, which are required for Israel’s combat aircraft.
The UK has steadily deepened its military relationship with Qatar in recent years. Joint training has included air policing over the Gulf state during the FIFA World Cup, as well as the deployment of a permanent joint Typhoon squadron, 12 Squadron, which is based in the UK but jointly manned by British and Qatari personnel.
Voyager tankers regularly take part in bilateral exercises in Qatari airspace. For London, the partnership reflects both a commitment to Gulf security and a means of strengthening defence-industrial links, with Qatar having purchased Typhoon fighters and Hawk trainers from BAE Systems.
The speed with which claims of RAF involvement spread online highlights the extent to which misinformation shapes perceptions of Western military activity in the region.
It doesn’t matter that it’s physically impossible! the nob heads have made their minds up it’s happening and no account of reasoning with them will convince them otherwise🙄believe me I’ve had the conversation!
Just come across an exhibition of the Flat Earth Society in Chester today, they claim that Nixon talking to the Astronauts on the moon while you can’t get a reliable mobile connection down the road today proves it must have been a hoax. So yes I agree no matter how much one explains the relative technology involved in each case it will never convince them.
The text for the image says Lightning IIs. UK F35s are simply called Lightnings not Lightning IIs.
The Lightening ‘ones’ were pretty good, British built supersonic Cold War air defence. Odd to think of f35 as a lightening.
Lightning. They don’t have bleach squirters to lighten things.
Anyone who knows anything about AAR would know that this was just a malicious bit of propaganda. But I suppose it doesn’t matter. The damage was done and the bastards achieved their perverse objective. That’s the power of social media