Additional British Typhoon jets will be deployed to Romania to bolster NATO air defence capabilities in Eastern Europe near the Russian border.

Together with eight Typhoons stationed in Cyprus, this uplift will bring the total number of RAF fighter jets stationed in South-Eastern Europe to 14, say the Royal Air Force.

The two additional jets are expected to remain in Romania until the end of July.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace made the announcement on a visit to Mihail Kogalniceanu Airbase in Romania alongside Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, where they met Romanian officials and observed UK jets taking part in NATO’s Air Policing mission. Operation Biloxi is the British name for the NATO Air Policing mission.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace MP said:

“The UK and Romania are steadfast in the defence of our shared values and commitment to NATO’s collective security, in the air, at sea, and on land. Together we are supporting Ukraine in its defence against Putin’s illegal invasion and I pay tribute to Romania’s generosity providing shelter for the tens of thousands of innocent civilians fleeing this horrific conflict.”

The UK Government said in a news release:

“Air policing is a purely defensive operation and a permanent NATO mission which began in 1961 during the Cold War. The mission ensures the security and integrity of all NATO Alliance members’ airspaces. Airspace is monitored by operations centres and, where it is assessed that an interception is required, NATO aircraft can be scrambled as part of a Quick Reaction Alert. The UK supports Romania by augmenting its own capabilities.”

Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston said:

“Our air forces are at the vanguard of NATO’s collective security, united in our shared determination to protect our nations. From the North of Norway to the Black Sea and Mediterranean, aircraft are airborne, alert and ready to defend against any threat to NATO territory or populations.”

You can read more here.

Tom has spent the last 13 years working in the defence industry, specifically military and commercial shipbuilding. His work has taken him around Europe and the Far East, he is currently based in Scotland.
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
49 Comments
oldest
newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Mark Franks
Mark Franks
2 years ago

Is this a return to the far East Airforce?

Crabfat
Crabfat
2 years ago
Reply to  Mark Franks

Or NEAF?

julian1
julian1
2 years ago

gone are the days of 2 additional squadrons. Now its just 2 additional aircraft

grizzler
grizzler
2 years ago
Reply to  julian1

yeah but the aircraft are so much better…

AV
AV
2 years ago
Reply to  julian1

Yeah the 2x extra aircraft does smack of tokenism…but a steady and subtle increase in NATO numbers is what’s required so not as to fan the flames. More important is the T72’s from Poland / Slovakia etc….interesting to see if these ‘donations’ are underpinned via Abrams from the US…all this needs to be softly softly despite the urgency.

Paul.P
Paul.P
2 years ago
Reply to  AV

Indeed softly softly is the way to go. I think Poland also wanted to make sure the new M1 tanks were in the bag. It seems the contract is now signed.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/poland-buys-250-abrams-tanks-deter-russian-threats-201688

AV
AV
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul.P

Cheers, seems the deal is done 👍

Steve
Steve
2 years ago
Reply to  AV

Softly softly, what? This isn’t a period of inflammed tension and war on words, this is a period of war. Hard power is what is needed I suspect it’s just that we don’t have the planes to send. When we were at war with libyia we used around 7 or 8 planes and that was a war we were involved in. At the time there was a lot of rumours that we couldn’t even maintain that number for any duration. Rumour was that the Apache had to be used even though they were much riskier, because there was nothing else… Read more »

Last edited 2 years ago by Steve
John H
John H
2 years ago
Reply to  julian1

Yeah, but on the bright side, they have stopped using Sopwith Camels.

JamesD
JamesD
2 years ago

And yet they’ll scrap T1 without replacement stressing even fewer airframes.

Nigel Collins
Nigel Collins
2 years ago
Reply to  JamesD

You would have thought given the current situation that replacements would have already been ordered!

Pound to Euro 1.20 

“According to Dirk Hoke, CEO Airbus Defence and Space, “The new Tranche 4 Eurofighter is currently the most modern European-built combat aircraft with a service life well beyond 2060.” Germany ordered 30 single-seater and 8 twin-seater Tranche 4 Eurofighters in late 2020 with cost of 5.4 billion euro.”

Last edited 2 years ago by Nigel Collins
DRS
DRS
2 years ago
Reply to  Nigel Collins

Definitely need to order more since f35 rate is so slow due to block 4 delays. Will keep production lines going and we can possibly use the 2 person one for the back seat be a UAV controller.

Nigel Collins
Nigel Collins
2 years ago
Reply to  DRS

A two-seater would be ideal for that role and ideal timing for our up and coming UAVs.

grizzler
grizzler
2 years ago
Reply to  Nigel Collins

yep lets hope we get a few…help to develop how we are going to use the UAVs

Mr Bell
Mr Bell
2 years ago
Reply to  Nigel Collins

38 aircraft for 5.4 billion Euros to my calculations is £118 million each. I know this contract likely comes with spare parts, servicing and possibly some weaponry but still chuffing expensive for Germany. Although a 100 billion Euro uplift in defence expenditure will easily cover this cost. I think if tranche 4 Eurofighter can be built and delivered to RAF within 3-5 years then yeah why not? Seems like a viable solution if we genuinely are going to give away or scrap our tranche 1 Eurofighters. I can see UK giving them to Poland so Poland can hand over to… Read more »

Nigel Collins
Nigel Collins
2 years ago
Reply to  Mr Bell

Agreed in full, now is not the time to be caught short on military equipment as you quite rightly say and Tranche 1 could be a viable option for Ukraine and or other countries with small budgets like Estonia for example.

Canada is increasing its defence budget like other countries, we need to do the same.

Canada unveils CAD 8 billion defence budget increase08 APRIL 2022

The government said it will launch a new defence policy review to determine whether its armed forces are adequately sized, equipped, and funded in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

https://www.janes.com/defence-news/industry-headlines/latest/canada-unveils-cad8-billion-defence-budget-increase

Simon
Simon
2 years ago
Reply to  Mr Bell

Maybe the cost of the ECR version drives up the cost ?

Steve R
Steve R
2 years ago
Reply to  Nigel Collins

Persoy I think we should buy at least 40 Tranche 3 or 4 Typhoons, keep the number around 150.

Nigel Collins
Nigel Collins
2 years ago
Reply to  Steve R

We certainly need an increase that’s for sure!

Steve
Steve
2 years ago
Reply to  Nigel Collins

The gov has the perfect excuse for not ordering anything, tempest. Every argument can be spun to say it’s worth waiting for the British jet and 6th generation. The reality that it is decades off and likely never happen, just gets in the way of a good spin. The government nor the next, will never have to put serious money down for it, so they can talk about it endlessly without risk

Last edited 2 years ago by Steve
Chris B
Chris B
2 years ago
Reply to  Steve

Anyone remember the TSR2 and where we could have been now2 with aircraft development??

Tom Keane
Tom Keane
2 years ago

My question is… why?

Airborne
Airborne
2 years ago
Reply to  Tom Keane

My reply is have a guess?

Monkey spanker
Monkey spanker
2 years ago
Reply to  Airborne

I guess there are spare rooms at the local four seasons and some personnel were annoying to the station commander to breaking point about going. So he said fine! In all seriousness I think an uplift in numbers may be needed if there are to be multiple long duration deployments at multiple locations. I’m not privy to information like how many pilots are there and how many are coming through, How many airframes there are working at one time, How many have to stay in the U.K. as an ideal number and what does that leave. How does all this… Read more »

Airborne
Airborne
2 years ago
Reply to  Monkey spanker

Agreed, we do need more numbers of assets, even if its to ensure we dont wear out both platforms and crew to much and to fast. We are low in numbers in every department of the military, and while we do have tech, and skilled people, we are limited in depth and as I have always said, once we sustain losses we would not be able to replace and continue the momentum. Cheers.

Robert Billington
Robert Billington
2 years ago
Reply to  Airborne

The govt will be caught napping as usual look
at the falklands and the schedule of cuts in the early 80s. Then something befalls us and we are left pissing in the wind.

Armchair Admiral
Armchair Admiral
2 years ago

Sort of, you could say that the aircraft are where they need to be..ie..facing “the enemy”,when there is little threat from elsewhere. However, it only needs another emergency somewhere else and suddenly there’s almost nothing left in the pot at home.
OR you could again say that the other aircraft are facing the second threat at a distance and not waiting until the threat is too near.
If,in dire circumstances, we had two carriers with 24 F35 on them that would be ok I suppose, and six top notch T45s defending our airspace, but…
AA

farouk
farouk
2 years ago

So i picked up the latest issue of Combat Aircraft today (May issue) and on page 7 they have knocked out a list of aircraft losses over the Ukraine. Only had a quick butchers and I noticed the mag reports Moscow has lost 5 Su35s, 3 of which were to the Mig 29. For all the singing and dancing Ive seen regards the so called best pound for pound fighter jet in the world it appears that the twinkle toes of the fighter world is coming off 2nd best to the 39 year old rough and tumble Mig 29, which… Read more »

David Barry
David Barry
2 years ago
Reply to  farouk

Good news!

AlexS
AlexS
2 years ago
Reply to  farouk

So you make your judgment with just 3 data points based?

farouk
farouk
2 years ago
Reply to  AlexS

Alex wrote:

So you make your judgment with just 3 data points based?

Alex thank you for your reply regards my post above. May I direct you to three salient words I used to describe my point of view, they are:
“it appears that”
The synonyms for which are:
 Allegedly
Ostensibly
Possibly
Probably
Supposedly

Hopefully that will answer the question you posed.

Andy B
Andy B
2 years ago
Reply to  AlexS

Does it matter how many data points are presented? Surely the fact the UkrAF is still flying means some of what we hear is true?

Douglas Newell
Douglas Newell
2 years ago
Reply to  farouk

That’ll have been the Ghost of Kiev, he took out 6 russkies in one day, then 12 another day. Ukrainians said so, do it must be true.

Farouk
Farouk
2 years ago
Reply to  Douglas Newell

Who during the day is a mild mannered janitor called….Henry.

grizzler
grizzler
2 years ago
Reply to  Farouk

could be…..

Farouk
Farouk
2 years ago
Reply to  grizzler

😀

John Clark
John Clark
2 years ago
Reply to  farouk

Interesting Farouk, the Russians should (on paper) have quickly subdued and overwhelmed the Ukrainian Airforce within a few days, like their army, they utterly failed…..

Instead it seems that progressive operations over 6 weeks have steadily ground the Ukrainians down, serviceability and weapons running low, but the fact that it is still operational in any capacity says much about the incredible stoicism of the Ukrainians and the utter, utter, failure of of the Russian Military in every measurable metric….

It certainly shows us that any conventional attack on NATO would be defeated in quick order, they are utterly incompetent.

RobW
RobW
2 years ago
Reply to  John Clark

Indeed. It would have helped our case for increased defence spending if the Russians hadn’t been so bad up to now. Their performance has shown they are no threat to NATO in a conventional sense.

That said, if Russia continue to grind down Ukraine’s ability to fight over an extended period then it may actually improve the case for an uplift.

Not that I want Ukraine and it’s people to suffer just so our politicians wake up.

Steven Kirkland
Steven Kirkland
2 years ago

We really need to increase and build fast to rapidly grow our capabilities.

We can’t afford any losses given that some of our tech takes years to build.

I also believe we should be building at least 6 to 8 long range heavy bombers with nuke capability.

We also need to get the nation conditioned to harden themselves, get our youth fit and conditioned via a national service type schooling.

Countries like Russia and China were people’s are patriotic is a challenge to us and we must now match that.

Michael Warr
Michael Warr
2 years ago

It would help if our Government spent money on aircraft we can have now such as Typhoons, Vigens and perhaps even Rapheals instead wasting billions of pounds on and aircraft that although high tech needs a launch ramp to take off with a full weapons and fuel load. Government should also if they want more F35’s consider buying 40-50 F35A’s

Challenger
Challenger
2 years ago

Are there currently any RAF Typhoons in Estonia?

You have to wonder about the ability of just over a 100 jets and 7 squadrons to sustain 14 or more aircraft in Cyprus and Eastern Europe as well as QRA in The UK and Falklands.

Replacing the T1’s with 30 or so T4’s is a no brainer for me given the very slow F35 schedule and advantage of keeping Typhoon production hot until Tempest.

grizzler
grizzler
2 years ago
Reply to  Challenger

‘a no brainer’ therin lies the very reason it wont happen

RobW
RobW
2 years ago
Reply to  Challenger

Typhoon production is hot, it’s just building for other air forces. Even if we did put in a new order it would be quite some time before we got them and perhaps too close to Tempest being introduced.

Andrew D
Andrew D
2 years ago
Reply to  Challenger

T1 were to be took out of service ,not a good idea as T1 Typhoons are pure dog fighters but be assured the Government knows best 🙄

liam
liam
2 years ago

Expect more Russian Bear flights toward the UK, so as to pressure our threadbare airforce.

Steve
Steve
2 years ago
Reply to  liam

Realistically bear bombers are no theat. In a war situation they would be picked off long before they got into range of the UK. What is a threat is their subs and that is an area we are really lacking in. Just not enough sub hunters, air or sea based. Admittedly in a first strike scenario, innocent looking bears could take out the very few air base we have. But realistically what then. Even before Ukraine war showed russian forces were a shadow of their perceived self, they would still have to get through all of Europe before attacking the… Read more »

Last edited 2 years ago by Steve
dave12
dave12
2 years ago
Reply to  liam

LOL yes the bear bombers are a real threat mind, not.

RobW
RobW
2 years ago
Reply to  dave12

I don’t think he is saying they are, just that we would still need to send up Typhoons to meet them.

Andy reeves
Andy reeves
2 years ago

Are the u.k aircraft flying fully armed!