American fighter jets and bombers have been flying combat missions from British bases as part of a major United States air and missile defence exercise across the United Kingdom, the US Air Force has said.
Astral Knight 2026, described as United States European Command’s premier integrated air and missile defence exercise and led by US Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa, is under way in the United Kingdom, drawing together fourth and fifth-generation aircraft to rehearse both the defence of allied airspace and offensive strikes against simulated enemy forces.
F-35A Lightning IIs and F-15E Strike Eagles of the 48th Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath are taking part from their home station, alongside KC-135 Stratotanker tankers and Airmen of the 100th Air Refueling Wing at RAF Mildenhall, with the exercise run out of bases that have long anchored the American air presence in Britain.
The training focuses on the tactical execution of integrated air and missile defence, with the fighters first flying defensive counter-air missions against simulated adversary jets and cruise missiles, before switching to offensive operations including fighter sweeps, escort, the suppression of enemy air defences and air interdiction against simulated air and land targets, a sequence intended to test both halves of the air battle.
Adding weight to the offensive side, B-1B Lancer bombers and their crews are scheduled to join the exercise, providing additional strike support while integrating with the fourth and fifth-generation fighters, in keeping with the way the United States routinely deploys its bombers into overseas exercises to reinforce deterrence and sharpen interoperability with allies.
The flying is being knitted together with ground control elements, with the 606th Air Control Squadron from Aviano Air Base in Italy providing tactical command and control during live-fly windows to keep the fighter and bomber formations coordinated, and carrying out a rapid mobility move that simulates deploying into an austere environment to test its own technical and logistical readiness.
Realism is being added by the 19th Electronic Warfare Squadron, based at Polygone in Germany, which is providing electronic warfare threat training and Link 16 network simulations and fielding land-based emitters to mimic adversary surface-to-air missiles, while carefully deconflicting the spectrum in real time so that simulated jamming does not interfere with civilian infrastructure, and its analysts reconstruct each engagement for the debrief.
The U.S. Air Force describes the exercise as a demonstration that it retains the initiative to act at a time and place of its choosing should deterrence fail, and as a way of validating integrated air and missile defence while showing how its units in Europe project power and defend American interests beyond the continental United States. The integration of advanced aircraft, it says, also enables allies to increase their own contributions to the conventional defence of Europe, a theme that has become central to the alliance as the United States presses its European partners to shoulder more of the burden.
