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 Dunlop
Tom Dunlop
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.

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49 COMMENTS

    • 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.

      • 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 available.

        I have no idea what happened to the 100 plus typhoons we are meant to have, but suspect the operational number is in the 20s

    • 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.”

      • 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.

      • 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 Ukraine their Mig29s. Obviously then leaving UK armed forces short of fighters and another defence cut at a time when we should be doing the opposite and increasing our armed forces numbers.

      • 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

      • 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 affect rotation of crews etc.

        • 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.

          • 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.

  5. 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

  6. 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 a large number of nations have decided to get rid of. It really would be interesting to hear more on the above. Meanwhile in China the second largest user of the SU35

      • 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.

      • 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?

    • 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.

    • 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.

      • 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.

  7. 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.

    • 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

  8. 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.

    • 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.

    • 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 🙄

    • 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 UK

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