British carrier launches jets in NATO drill against Russia

F-35 Lightning jets have flown in the skies over Finland for the first time, launched from the deck of the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales as part of NATO’s premier air warfare exercise, a vast drill rehearsing the alliance’s response to an armed attack on one of its members, the Royal Navy has said.

The fifth-generation jets, drawn from 809 Naval Air Squadron and operating alongside Merlin and Wildcat helicopters from the carrier’s flight deck, provided the United Kingdom’s aerial contribution to Ramstein Flag 26, a huge workout of allied air power stretching across the length and breadth of Europe. The squadron is one of the United Kingdom’s two front-line Lightning formations, alongside the Royal Air Force’s 617 Squadron.

Sorties were launched from the North Sea, frequently in weather the Royal Navy described as unseasonal for June, with air-to-air refuelling tankers extending the stealth fighters’ reach for sustained, long-range missions deep into Europe, on occasion operating 700 miles or more from their floating base, an illustration of both the reach of the carrier and the endurance of the F-35.

The scenario behind the exercise tested the alliance’s ability to respond rapidly, cohesively and decisively to an attack on a member state, the kind of event that would trigger Article Five of the North Atlantic Treaty and demand a collective response from all its nations, a premise that has taken on fresh weight amid repeated Russian provocations along NATO’s eastern and northern flanks.

The scope of Ramstein Flag 26, which takes its name from the large United States air base in southwest Germany, was vast, spread across 20 locations from Norway to Spain and Finland, with HMS Prince of Wales and her carrier strike group, including the destroyer HMS Duncan and the tanker RFA Tidespring, operating at sea. Around 150 sorties were flown each day by up to 150 NATO aircraft from 18 nations over the 11 days of the exercise, ranging from land and carrier-based F-35s through Typhoons, F-18s, Swedish Gripens, French Rafales and Mirages, to tankers, transport aircraft and Reaper drones.

Among the more striking sights were F-35Bs landing, refuelling and taking off again from Finnish highways, a feat performed by United States Marine Corps Lightnings, while 809 Naval Air Squadron’s jets paid a more conventional visit, making use of the facilities at Pirkkala air base near Tampere, around 100 miles north of Helsinki.

The aim throughout, the Royal Navy said, was to ensure that many different types of aircraft, carrying different sensors and weapons and flown by pilots with half a dozen different first languages, directed from headquarters hundreds of miles away, could work together seamlessly and effectively against the latest threats.

The Commander of the UK Carrier Strike Group, Commodore Rich Hewitt, said the coordination of the group with 18 allied partners was “a powerful testament to the skill of our sailors and aviators”, adding that the strike group was now “fully integrated into NATO’s frontline defence”. Operating under NATO command, he said, the fifth-generation capability generated from HMS Prince of Wales delivered “a deliberate message to any potential adversary”, that the Royal Navy and its allies together provide the “precise, synchronised combat power” needed to secure the Northern Flank.

Away from the flying, the exercise also tested the carrier’s medical organisation, with the Royal Navy noting that a conflict on the scale of the Ramstein Flag scenario would almost certainly produce sustained and serious casualties. HMS Prince of Wales carries a comprehensive hospital suite, including an operating theatre offering Role 2 medical support able to perform urgent surgery on the most severely injured before they are transferred ashore, backed by a medical team of around 20 on call around the clock and a Maritime Medical Emergency Response Team, a kind of flying ambulance that delivers life-saving aid on the spot, all of which were put through a series of casualty drills.

The deployment continues a period of intense activity for the fleet flagship and her F-35s, which have already taken part in the Arctic Sentry vigilance mission and the NATO anti-submarine exercise Dynamic Mongoose, and underlines the central role the carrier and her embarked jets now play in the defence of NATO’s northern and eastern approaches at a moment of heightened tension with Russia.