Forces from the Nato, Germany, Italy and the US have commenced the UK Royal Air Force’s (RAF) capstone tactical training exercise, Cobra Warrior 2022.
The three-week exercise is being conducted between 3 and 23 September.
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Cobra Warrior is a biannual exercise, however, the previous iterations of the exercise were postponed due to pandemic restrictions.
This year’s event, being the first in several years, will further provide an opportunity to support larger exercises in future.
Nato’s involvement in the event will allow the deployed forces to enhance interoperability between the Nato members and further hone their procedures, techniques and tactics.
Detachment commander lieutenant colonel Köllner said: “The exercise is very realistic for us, planning together, working together, flying together.
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By GlobalData“It also gives our people a focus, they know what they’re working for and we want to be ready for any situation that may come up.”
On 7 September, the Cobra Warrior exercise moved into its Mission 2 phase.
This training event was supported by RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire. The base is responsible for the delivery of training packages, using the Air Space Warfare Centre, for the event.
The Italian detachment of Eurofighter Typhoons and German ECR Tornado aircraft are also being hosted by RAF Waddington.
Led by Köllner, the German detachment’s six ECR Tornados have provided ‘suppression of enemy air defence’ capabilities for this multinational training event.
Other participants in the exercise include a Nato E-3A Sentry aircraft, along with US Air Force (USAF) HH-60Gs combat search and rescue aircraft, F-16 Fighting Falcons, F-15 fighter jets and F35A Lightning II aircraft.
The command-and-control support during this training event was provided by the Italian G550.
The Italian and British refuelling aircraft also participated in the event.
