Royal Navy and RAF aviators recently participated in the U.S. Navy’s Gray Flag 2024 exercise near Los Angeles, testing their skills against cutting-edge technologies and allied pilots in one of the most expansive training ranges in the world.
According to a Royal Navy news update, the exercise, held at Naval Base Ventura County at Point Magu, brought together advanced aircraft and systems in a rigorous two-week air combat training programme.
The UK contingent, primarily from 17 Test and Evaluation Squadron (TES), joined forces with their American counterparts, flying F-35B Lightning II jets alongside U.S. F-35s, F/A-18 Super Hornets, C-130s, and even uncrewed systems.
The training spanned 36,000 square miles of air and sea space, equivalent to four times the size of Wales. Advanced sensors meticulously recorded data across 600 sorties, enabling comprehensive evaluation of aircraft, weapons, and systems performance.
Commander Stephen Collins, known by the callsign “Lothar,” leads the UK’s 17 TES. Notably, he is the first Briton to complete the U.S. Navy’s prestigious ‘Top Gun’ programme.
According to the news update, The UK’s participation at Gray Flag also supports the United Operational Test Team, an alliance of F-35 users from the US, UK, and Australia, working together to refine tactics and technology for the fifth-generation fighter. Former 17 TES leader Commander Matt “FB” Fooks-Bale was instrumental in integrating the AIM-120D Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) into F-35 operations, a weapon capable of neutralising aerial threats up to 100 miles away.
The exercise wasn’t all work, with some downtime allowing personnel to engage in volleyball, paddleboarding, and other activities, culminating in a beach barbecue. The UK squadron also boosted morale by selling £10,000 worth of custom ‘Gray Flag’ merchandise.
Gray Flag continues to showcase the UK’s commitment to high-end combat readiness, you can read more on this here.
It will be interesting to see how UK F35B’s do in these combat exercises once they finally get Meteor on F35. I don’t believe the USA will have anything equivalent for internal carriage on any F35or the F22. The block IV capabilities plus the new radar and Meteor should make our F35B’s some of the most deadly air to air platforms in the world. Especially if they also take over an E7.
I cannot find any comments regarding how well the UK contingent fared, it would be interesting to see how the aircraft, systems and pilot performed against highly skilled adversaries.
These exercises are conducted to pinpoint weaknesses: what happens if ‘x’ goes down: what happens if ‘y’ goes down: what happens if everything goes down. They are not conducted to see who’s the ‘best.’
Click bate. Misspelling headline
The prediction for war is very close the USA as nothing special to offer they may be the best team ever but they didn’t help back in the war until they had Japan and they fucking fucked them up and now look what gone on ?.??
You may want to look up the Aim-260 that the U.S. has coming online in the next year
Yeah but Meteor has a reported cost of £1-1.5 million. Aim260 circa 7.5 million. That’s an expensive missile system regardless of its range advantage.
Can the US forces detect , track and lock onto a stealth aircraft at ranges of +150 miles? I doubt it. Making Aim260 of dubious advantage Vs older systems like Amraarm and meteor
Would surprise me if new build Meteors were in the same price bracket as AIM260.
Have there been any recent orders of scale?
Curious to know where you are getting the cost figure for the aim260 from. As far as I’m aware there has never been a price publicly disclosed.
By the time Meteor arrives on the F35B the F22 will be rocking the AIM-260.
Yes but no timeline yet for AIM 260 on F35, with the new AN/APG 85 radar on F35 it’s likely to have quite an advantage over F22 in long range detection. F35 also has ASRAAM and off bore sight capability and infra red search and track capability that we know are deadly to F22’s in a close in fight from previous air to air training exercises.
Upgraded F22 may be superior depending on what upgrades are selected but if our F35’s are second only to the F22 in the air I would be pretty thrilled about that capability.
An F35 packing meteor would be deadly at range to anything Russia could ever imagine fielding and pretty handy against any of Chinas latest combat aircraft which is what really matters.
an F-35 in current form would dominate anything russia has. they would die long before seeing the f-35.
Many of the experts who follow congressional testimony and go over budgets believe that the aim260 has quietly gone into low rate production but I agree with you that for the foreseeable future nothing will get anywhere near a blk 4 f35.
It is widely believed that the $100 million loss Lockheed Martin announced on a missile contract in April 2024 was on the AIM 260 contract that the Secretary of the Air Force said was going into low-rate initial production in 2023. LM says it expects to take a $1 billion short term loss on this still classified missile program but eventually make a long-term profit.
UK Block 4 F-35Bs will be able to be armed up to and including (simultaneously):
2 Meteor AAMs
8 SPEAR-3/EWs
2 ASRAAM on the special LO Fox-2 pylons.
That’s super stealthy with Meteors and SPEARs
Or slightly less than super stealthy but still very stealthy with those extra 2 ASRAAMs 😈
That’s practically an entire A2AD unit wiped by a single fighter they didn’t even live long enough to see!
I’m just intrigued to know how we can use the 17 TES F35B in a simulated combat situation and expect to learn valuable information for the full fat operational ones. That’s ZM138 BK 04 in the photo.
They removed the testing equipment from those 3 aircraft earlier this year to release them for frontline service.
17sqn currently has additional jets as they are evaluating the latest tech refresh 3 aircraft.
Good pic – be interested to know how much stealth is lost by carrying ASRAAM underwing. RAF/RN F35 always seem to carry ASRAAM when deployed on real world ops – Shader etc. . Seems to suggest the value of carrying the missile outways any disadvantage caused by loss of stealth?
They still have a very very low RCS with external ASRAAM.
the AIM-9x block 2 is specifically built to be stealth, different shape and coatings. they say it doesnt have an effect on the stealth. curious if ASRAAM has been modified as well
As far as I can tell, F-35 has a pair of LO pylons specifically for the purpose of mounting Fox-2s like ASRAAM.
So deliberately designed to carry those self defence missiles and still stay almost as stealthy as without.
It’s really hard to confirm though, there’s (obviously) very little made obviously available
Was the volleyball played on the beach wearing jeans?
And don’t forget the mirror sunglasses!