American B-1B Lancer bombers have flown alongside F-15E Strike Eagles and F-35A Lightning IIs over the North Sea, training together as part of a major US air and missile defence exercise under way across the United Kingdom, the US Air Force has said.

The formation, made up of bombers and fourth and fifth-generation fighters from the 100th Air Refueling Wing’s area of operations, flew the mission on 8 June as part of Astral Knight 26, US European Command’s premier integrated air and missile defence exercise, which has drawn together aircraft based in the United Kingdom and across the continent to rehearse the defence of allied airspace and strikes against simulated enemy forces.

The U.S. Air Force said aerial refuelling operations during the exercise increase the range and endurance of combat aircraft, supporting tactical integrated air and missile defence and tactical command and control throughout Astral Knight 26, allowing the fighters and bombers to stay airborne for longer and to be marshalled together as a single coordinated force rather than operating in isolation.

The B-1B brings significant weight to that formation, a supersonic, long-range bomber capable of carrying a large payload of conventional weapons, while the F-15E and F-35A provide the fighter escort and strike capability that complete the package, together representing the kind of high-end, multi-aircraft integration the exercise is designed to test.

The exercise has already seen the F-35As and F-15Es of the 48th Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath and the KC-135 tankers of the 100th Air Refueling Wing at RAF Mildenhall operating from their home stations, working alongside the 606th Air Control Squadron from Italy and the 19th Electronic Warfare Squadron from Germany, which has been simulating adversary air defences and jamming threats to sharpen the realism of the training.

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17 COMMENTS

  1. i live quite close to the coast (east-Durham area) and RAF, and other nations’ air forces’ sorties are a regular thing over the sea in this area

    after i became more interested in the nationalities and types of airframe i started subscribing to Flightradar to find out who and what was training over the sea around this way. i didn’t realise exactly how popular the North Sea was for flight training (there’s an ‘aggressor’ squadron based at Teesside airport. they provide the enemy for flight training sorties). they use Hawks as their aircraft of choice)

    the racket from the various aircraft is out of this world, but completely acceptable. because the pilots need uncluttered skies to train and develop their tactics, and flying skills in

    it’s impossible to actually see them in flight because by the time the noise registers overhead they’ve gone. it’s quite a regular occurrence

    apologies, because i’m completely off-topic

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    • The aircraft are “Honey Badgers” or Aero L-159 ALCA. The same company operate some Dassault business jets from Teesside that also simulate aggressor formations.

  2. Genuinely interested in this. In the event of a major attack on the UK, it would be fascinating to know how the air battle would be coordinated. Who owns the battle? Because it’s pretty clear that the US Airforce would actually bring more assets to the party than the RAF would.

    I’m not after the real answer, just strikes me as an interesting question.

  3. Good Day, lets Hope if there was a war the Americans would help us! As it is we would have difficulties to survive the first few weeks at least!
    Still living in hope a miracle will prevail in the Long awaited Report! But I do believe Starmer or his Chancellor still don‘t realise the danger?
    Nick

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  5. OT. Watching the By Election in Makerfield and what struck me was how close Lisa Nandy is to Andy Burn Them All; history there. Just an observation.

    • DW,
      Is there any evidence re the position of A. Burnham on UK defence? Would it matter? Labour party back bench MPs remain the same until 2029, correct? Afraid the die is cast until 2029, “allia jacta est” (or a reasonable approximation thereof). 🤔

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  8. The US bombers flying out of RAF Fairford habitually infringe the airspace above Aston Down Airfield.
    The area is clearly marked on the Southern England half million as an area of “intense gliding activity” so fingers crossed they don’t have a coming together with a sailplane on aerotow.
    Could be slightly messy……..

  9. Just making sure we know our place

    Nothing to defend us from apart from enemies we create for ourselves with 36 years of iilegal wars.

    Time NATO was scrapped and we got an actual security architecture in place because what he have has failed is for a hundred years

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