Exercise Joint Warrior 2020/2

 Joint Warrior

This year still sees much military activity. Between the 4th October – 15th October 2020 participants from Royal Navy, British Army, Royal Air Force, NATO members, and others come together for a Joint Tactical Exercise featuring aircraft, ships and land troops. Prestwick is home to some of the aircraft taking part and I took a visit to see what was happening and spent a night away in a Marstons Inn hotel so I could spend a couple of days there. Prestwick enthusiasts have created a website showing daily movements which helps like minded people know when aircraft are coming in and out. The Scottish Aviation Photographers group on Facebook and Fight Control forum are also great tools for finding out movements. A link to the weekends movements can be found at http://www.egpk.com/ (These are updated monthly) Weekends movements on 9th/10th were: Friday 9 October 2020 ZZ338 A330-2 RAF RRR2825 arr 0005 dep 0137ish 11-00283 MC12W USA RONIN26 arr 0940ish dep 1054 63-8036 KC135R USAF RCH800 arr 1209ish ZZ336 A330-2 RAF MADRS59 arr 1242ish dep 1452ish T-054 A330-2 MMF99 training circa 1605 OY-EUR PC12 arr 1635 dep 1703 LX-VCL B747-8 CLX42K Saturday 10 October 2020 3 ATLANTIC FNY5620 dep 1110ish Air to air refuelling take place over the North East of Scotland and the A330s refuel the Typhoon figher jets based at RAF Lossiemouth. This year also saw R08, the Royal Navys new flagship aircraft carrier take part with the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II onboard. These jets would also require fuel. The A330s would do a stint and land back at Prestwick for themselves to refuel before departing again to the North East.  Maritime Patrol Aircraft have a major role to play in the exercise. This aircraft is a French Navy  Bréguet 1150 Atlantic.

This Dutch Airbus A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport aircraft T-054 carries out air to air refuelling.

The RAF A330 Voyager ZZ336 also for air to air refuelling. Perhaps a little controversial, Boris Johnson had this aircraft painted to celebrate Brexit at a cost of £900,000

Another foreign participate was the Canadian Air Force Lockheed CP-140 Aurora 140113