Royal Air Force will deploy to Romania
Royal Air Force
Typhoon aircraft based at RAF Coningsby Lincolnshire will be deploying this
summer to Romania as part of the UK’s commitment to NATO.
The Typhoon
multi-role fighters and support personnel will be based at the Mihail
Kogalniceanu Airbase in southeast Romania for four months working with the
Romanian Air Force to conduct the NATO mission.
To support and
establish the operation, the Logistics Squadron at RAF Coningsby has already started
packing all the equipment needed to sustain the mission, from specialist vehicles,
spare parts to tool boxes.
Flight
Lieutenant Mark Taylor said: “The
Squadron has been very busy already supporting this mission. We enable
the operations to go ahead by ensuring the equipment is available for the jets
to operate. We do that here at RAF Coningsby but we also deploy to
anywhere in the world when needed.”
Specialist
personal from the RAF Leeming based 90 Signals Unit are also deploying to
provide access to the mission critical intelligence and NATO command
information the pilots will need to carry out their missions.
No 2 Mechanical
Transport Squadron from RAF Wittering has already been busy moving over 100
Tons of essential freight to Romania, and are now preparing to transport even
more equipment ready for it to be loaded at the Marchwood Military Port in
Hampshire over the coming weeks.
The UK is the
first nation to provide jets to support the NATO mission in Romania. The RAF’s
lead planner for the mission Group Captain Pip Harding OBE RAF said: “With this
mission, the RAF once again will be demonstrating its ability to plan, deploy
and operate at the heart of the NATO Alliance.
Equipped with state of the art fighters, the RAF continues to make a
significant contribution to NATO, and in so doing sends a clear message to our
Romanian friends that we stand alongside them in our ongoing commitment to the
defence of NATO Airspace.”
Editor: Jim Robinson
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