Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jets have begun NATO air defence missions over Poland, underscoring Britain’s role in deterring Russian provocations on the Alliance’s eastern flank.
As first reported by the UK Defence Journal, two Typhoons launched from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire on Friday evening, supported by a Voyager tanker, to patrol Polish skies.
The sortie formed part of NATO’s Eastern Sentry mission, created after Russian drones violated Polish sovereign airspace earlier this month in what NATO called the most serious breach of Alliance airspace since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Ministry of Defence has now confirmed the mission, with the jets returning to the UK in the early hours of Saturday. Officials stressed this was only the beginning of sustained operations to bolster the Alliance’s deterrence posture.
Defence Secretary John Healey said: “RAF Typhoons have now flown their first air defence mission over Poland, sending a clear signal: NATO airspace will be defended. I’m proud of the outstanding British pilots and air crew who took part in this successful operation to defend our Allies from reckless Russian aggression.”
The missions come as the UK marks the 85th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, a reminder of shared history with Poland, whose pilots flew alongside the RAF in 1940. Now, British jets stand watch over Poland in the face of a new threat from Russia.
Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Harv Smyth, added: “Our partnership with NATO has never been stronger. This sortie marks the RAF’s first operational mission on Eastern Sentry, reinforcing the UK’s steadfast commitment to NATO and its allies. We remain agile, integrated, and ready to project airpower at range.”
Equipped with advanced sensors and ASRAAM missiles, the Typhoons are well-suited to detect and intercept aerial threats such as drones or Russian fighter aircraft. The operation is part of Britain’s wider role in NATO, from the permanent Army presence in Estonia to rotational deployments in Romania.
By visibly projecting airpower into Eastern Europe, the RAF’s patrols aim to remind Moscow that its testing of NATO’s borders will be met with immediate and credible responses.
Is that the latest comunication device attached to the Canopy, a great big Megaphone ?
No, that’s to do with the fuel. If the aircraft is running low then up pops the retractable tow bar and then a bigger plane can come along and haul it to its next destination. I’ve seen the pictures.
Oh, that makes sense then. Do they not have fuel gauges then ?
Built for but not with ?
In the Korean War an American F-86 jet aircraft was hit by North Korean anti air defenses and lost almost all its fuel. The wingman flew up behind the damaged aircraft and pushed it (F-86 had a single central jet that allowed the nose cone to almost fit the top of the exhaust nozzle) off and on for over 60 miles to get the damage aircraft, and his friend, out over the sea so he could bail out and not get captured by the NoKo army.
The very bad part is that the pilot of the damaged aircraft drowned when he got tied up in his parachute shroud.
I mentioned this yesterday but I think it got mod’ed for having a link. Sorry if it ends up being a double post!
Thanks for posting this, I never knew about that. Will do a search now.
Here is the first line of the article I read and tried to link to:
Robbie Risner pushed Joe Logan’s F-86 for almost 60 mile
I think it will get you to the same article.
That’s sort of depressing.
I agree.
I would go so far as to say completely depressing.
Do everything right and your wingman/friend STILL dies.
Isn’t sending out typhoons armed only with short range missiles like fighting a sniper with a revolver?
I took the ASRAAM missiles comment as part of a generalisation of Typhoon wider capabilities, not literally what they carry.
Because of rules of engagement.
I suppose because it’s a policing mission being able to shoot down a target 100 miles away is counter to the mission.
Show boating. We all know the whole UK armed forces are gigantically under strength and lacking key mass and any form of attritional reserve.
The RAF needs to purchase Spain’s tranche 2s x 24 AND order an additional batch of 24-36 new aircraft to see the RAF through to Tempest. Current frontline deployable strength isn’t deterring anyone, least of all Putin.
But you thought the Japanese deploying 4 F15s to Europe was amazing.
I would call it showing solidarity to NATO. It also shows that UK based typhoons can actually strike Russia… essentially it’s a good message we can project our Uk based jets into Eastern Europe.
But I completely agree on the lack of Jet numbers being a big issue as well as squadron numbers.. essentially fast jet wise the UK should have 8 typhoon and 4 f35b front line squadrons… which would really require 150-160 single seat typhoons and 70-80 F35Bs.
Once again, British Government wake up. Inform the Public we are almost at war and need to conscript and rearm immediately!
After doing that put words into action.
Democracy is great to have but you have to take swift and strong action to defend it! Especially when being constantly threated and provoked as in the last weeks and days by the Russians in Estonia and Poland.
Nick
Nick, we have only ever commenced conscription when a world war has started on our continent or is imminent, and we quickly need an army of several million, and a commensurately larger RN and RAF. I don’t see conscription is viable for the UK in the current era though – we do not have the barracks, ranges and training areas, a large enough training staff, enough weapons and personal kit or the platforms/vehicles for the conscripts to man. [An army-centric answer in the main but the point is doubtless true for the RN/RM and RAF].
We would have to go with the regulars, and call up both the volunteer reserves and the strategic reserve (new name for regular reservists)…as our maximum effort. Other NATO nations will have to pick up the slack.
As for rearmament, first some history. We initiated rearmament in 1934 after some preliminary work in 1933 soon after Hitler came to power. A great deal had been achieved before 3rd Sep 1939 when war was declared. We would certainly have lost the Battle of Britain had we not undertaken this programme and been wothout Spitfires and especially Hurricanes, as well as radar etc. [Neville Chamberlain as Chancellor of the Exchequer made the decision to prioritise the RAF for rearmament in 1935.]
Arguably it takes far longer to rearm than the more-than-5.5 years we had leading up to WW2, given the reduced industrial base and the greater complexity of equipment. Rearmament should have started several years ago.
I agree large scale conscription for the military is probably not what we need.. after all the a mechanised combined arms formation runs on engineers, logistics staff, technicians, tankies, gunners etc.. Not roles that are easy to fill using short term conscription…and I simply could not see many viable roles for reservists in the RAF or RN unless it’s for basic base security or housekeeping jobs most modern conscription is really just a convenient to train reservists or in the case of an army like Russia a cheap unskilled workforce.
But there are some things the UK could do..
1) I think there are opportunities around development of dynamic more involved reserves.. especially linked with free education as the carrot. Give people a years full time contract to simply learn a role in the forces, then give them a civilian apprenticeship or free education and have them have a reserve commitment for say a decade and if they so wish fast tract recruitment back into the regulars… with the option to actually dip in and out..this could would especially well for some of the more technical arms.. take a nurse.. year one working as an army healthcare assistant, finish that then your a reservist for 20 years and you get your free university education to qualify as a nurse… if you want you can dip in and out of the army as nurse, swapping between the army and NHS or private work to suit your development and family needs at that time.. maybe your couple of years qualified is in the NHS in ED and say at 25 you decide your up for an adventure and the army.. you do that for 5 years.. hit 30:get married and go back to the NHS as an ED charge nurse.. spend 6 years that setting.. but at 40 decide you want to take that 2 decades of emergency nursing experience back into the regular army for a few years.. before retiring and going back into the NHS.. but all that time you were still a reservist.. you could do that with most of the career paths.
2) civil defence…one thing we have forgotten is when two peer nations start knocking the crap out of each other.. the winner is the one that can sustain the greater industrial output and have a civilian population that does not decided to give up ( because if the civilian population gives up, the government will give up and at that point its irrelevant how well the army navy and airforce are doing). So I think there is something around creating a civil defence core.. as person who managed civil contingencies, I can hand on heart say the civil contingencies/civil defence of this nation is utterly and completely dire..it gets overwhelmed by a bad snow day so what it going to do if Russia bombs our hospitals ( and Russia would do that in war.. once cruise missile per DGH would cause a catastrophic failure of our health system and massive loss of life).. so I would create strategic reserves in civil defence.. fire, constabulary, search and rescue, health, infrastructure repair etc.. make it easy for people to volunteer and learn skills or retain skills and be on a register.. look at me I’m still pretty fit and young but I’ve retired early.l my skill set is emergency care, civil contingencies, managing major incidents control rooms, managing biological hazard events and even running civil NBC decontamination… but I’m I on a registered or available as some sort of reserve in a civil contingencies role.. am I hell and even if I was desperate there is no option to be or keep my skills up.
I’m not sure that I agree there isn’t a role for reservists in the modern RAF and RN.
Both the US (National Guard Units) and other European nations (Sweden, Denmark for examples) make extensive use of reservists to fly and operate their aircraft essentially borrowing people from the Private Sector.
There should be scope particualrly with the RFA for training merchant seaman for a career in some sort of equivalent to the US Merchant Marine Academy in exchange for service with the RFA or indeed RN. Similarly with appropirate renumeration allowing people to work in both the RFA and merchant marine would likely increase recruitment (we train you to be a watch officer and then you’re allowed to work merchant salaries a year on/year off etc. for so long). Similar to your nurse idea.
Both services are struggling for personnel.
Similar programs could be offered for marine engineers, aircraft technicians etc. both of which are lucrative careers but have reasonable entry costs essentially the RAF and RN would be offereing the training and experience that would get a civilian job with a return of potentially some regular service and then some reserve service after that, ensuring that military training met and was credentialed as civilian qualifications would be key (at the moment many are not).
Similarly if the US can train pilots and then have them fly in the National Guard after they leave the USAF for higher salaries but still get to fly fighter jets I don’t see why the RAF couldn’t do something similar.
Age restrictions on Army Reserve etc. probably need looking at if you can meet the physical tests I don’t see why there should be a maximum age restriction as most poeple are still really establishing themselves in their civilian careers by the time they age out of the oppourtunity to join the reserve. As Ukraine has shown you can perfectly well fight a war with older/middle aged troops in the modern environment.
Hi TR sorry that was a typo if you read the flow of the text what I was meaning was conscript not reservist.. there are as you say plentiful reservist roles.. but nothing really for a conscript.
I think the British people need to wake up and inform the government we are nearly at war. The PM will only take it seriously if there are votes on the line.
Just two Typhoons, and for only a few hours on a single sortie. I expected the minimum of a 4-ship. This is far from impressive. It’s just tokenism.
I suppose it proves we can if we could be arsed… which is something 🤔
Considering Russia is clearly testing NATOs resolve, it’s time to push back or we will have another crimea on our hands
Dear Graham,
Many thanks your well informed reply. I hope for all of us its not to late in these dark hours? In my opinion we do Need a Churchillian type of leader in these times before its to late!
How many times to we comment and complain about the Lack of serious Investment in our forces on these pages?
Nothing seems to happen from the Government side! Conservatives and Labour seem to be in the same boat! All mouth and no action. ( only behind the door closures, cuts and scrapping etc). Would Reform or others be better?
Nick
Really I think UKDJ contributes to the British public greatly underestimating the state of the UK armed forces.
Contributing 2 Typhoons is a bare minimum token force and essentially meaningless.
Perhaps that’s the intention of the mission simply to show political will but that isn’t commented on in the article which makes it sound like a significant RAF fighter force has been deployed abroad, which with limited fighters is unlikely.
Does anyone else find it frankly embarrassing that Turkey is already operating more E-7 Wedgetails than the RAF will ever have, will soon be operating more modern eurofighters (Tranche 4) than the RAF has (as well as likely Saudi Arabia).
As ever there’s alot of political hot air about Britain rearming but there’s been precious little physical evidence of it other than promising “unmanned platforms” which don’t exist are completely unproven and if they’re to have the same endurance and weapons load capability of manned aircraft will need to be similarly sized and likely more expensive.