'Cobra Warrior' is the name of a military training exercise that various Nato countries take part it. The last one I witnessed was way back in 2019. It featured aircraft from Germany, Italy, USA and Israel. Since then it was cancelled for two years due to covid, and then should have gone ahead earlier this year but Russia choosing to invade Ukraine put paid to that!
Finally after several months, its finally been given the go-ahead, and Cobra Warrior 2022 is underway.
Last time, the 'stars' of the show were the Israeli F15's which took part, and as they are a rare visitor to these shores, people travelled from all over the country to watch.
This years star attraction wasn't quite as 'exotic' but it was a plane that the RAF (Royal Air Force) no longer uses. This is the Tornado (shown above). It had been slowly withdrawn from active service over the last decade, and was finally decommissioned a few years ago.
These are from the German Air Force, and was the first time in a while that this aircraft had been seen in the UK (other than the odd airshow).
I think there are 6 GAF Tornado's here for the exercise, although only 4 of them flew today. Here they are returning to base after a busy morning somewhere over the North Sea.
After flying back in formation, the pilots then peel of one at a time to land
Really good to see these, I started my photography 'journey' 6 years ago, and by that time most of the interesting aircraft had been decommissioned or retired from service, I'm missing decent images of both the Harrier and the Vulcan too.
At least I've finally managed to tick this one off, including some shots of the aircraft taxiing along the runway.
Also seen at the exercise today were the Eurofighter Typhoons below:
These were used by the Italian Air Force. We did see these last time, but they are still fantastic aircraft, so I'm happy to see them again.
The Typhoon is a much newer aircraft compared to the Tornado (and actually I think they replaced the former plane)
Next was this small reconnaissance aircraft. Didn't actually know what it was so had to look it up... it is apparently a Gulfstream G550 CAEW.
Never seen this before, and it looks like its not a common aircraft, so it was pretty interesting to watch.
Ah... I know this one though!
With its unique radar disc thing on top, this can only be the Sentry E-3D. There was actually a squadron of aircraft these stationed at RAF Waddington up until just a couple of months ago. Origianlly a squadron of 7, the numbers had slowly dwindled over the years and the remaining 3 were sold to the Chilean Air Force.
The sight above used to be common in the skies above Lincolnshire, and I thought we had seen the last of them... so it was a big surprise to see that one of the NATO E-3D's had been brought in to be involved with the exercise.
Its principle purpose is reconnaissance, but the aircraft can also be utilized as a sort of 'command post' in the sky. The aircrew onboard can help manage and co-ordinate missions. And today it's role was the management of the training exercise. It was the first to take off, and after spending 4 hours circling over somewhere near the North Sea, close to where the exercise took place, it was the last to return.
It was a long day today. It might look like a really busy day, but in reality there was 20 minutes of activity at 10AM as all the aircraft left to go to the exercise location, and then there was a 3-4h hour wait and then all the aircraft returned in another 20 minute burst of activity.
Lots of waiting around in-between!
It was worth it though, as it gave me a rare opportunity to see the previously mentioned Tornado, along with a chance to see something different (as I don't do planes very often). And, I also managed to get some reasonable shots too.
The exercise is due to last for another week. I happen to be on Leave for that week as well, so hopefully I can get another opportunity to see some noisy interesting planes :-)
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