Aviation News - May 2016

S

ix Luftwaffe Euro ghter EF2000s

recently took part in Exercise Cobra

Warrior 16-1 organised by the

RAF for its next batch of Typhoon-

quali ed weapons instructors as the  nal part

of their course.

The  ying element of the exercise took

place between March 7 and 24 and sorties

were  own every second day. The periods in

between were used for planning the complex

missions.

Five of the German pilots were also in the

last phase of the Luftwaffe’s  rst Euro ghter

quali ed weapons instructors’ course being

run from Laage’s resident Fighter Weapons

School. The German Euro ghters arrived on

March 3 and departed on the 23rd.

The RAF and Luftwaffe Typhoons

(Germany uses the name EF2000) were

part of a Blue Air force comprising up to 30

aircraft, while Red Air was between ten and

15 strong, although if ‘shot down’ the jets

could ‘regenerate’ to rejoin the  ght.

Virtually all the RAF’s fast jet units

participated as well as airborne early warning,

intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance

(ISR) plus transport aircraft and helicopters. A

Cobham Dassault Falcon 20 also took part.

ROLES

The Euro ghter student weapons instructors

performed roles during their missions that

included defensive counter air, offensive counter

air, strike, anti-surface force air operation (anti-

Above: A German EF2000 on its take-off run

at Coningsby with St Michael Church in the

distance.

Below left: All six German Euro ghters parked

at RAF Coningsby’s Visiting Aircraft Handling

Section.

Below: An EF2000 taxies back to its parking

position.

Below right: Most of the ground personnel

supporting the deployment were from

Wittmund, as was the detachment

commander who did not  y during the visit.

Lt Col Gero Finke is station commander of

the German base and while the EF2000s

were in England he had the Taktische

Luftwaffengruppe ‘Richthofen’ badge applied

to them all.

14 Aviation News incorporating Classic Aircraft May 2016

EXERCISE

COBRA WARRIOR

Editor Dino Carrara reports from RAF Coningsby on

a groundbreaking deployment of Luftwaffe EF2000s.

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