A NATO AWACS surveillance aircraft arrived at Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C., on Aug. 8 from its home at Geilenkirchen, Germany, for three weeks of training with the F-15Es of the 4th Fighter Wing. It will stay through Wednesday. Turkish Air Force Capt. Gurhan Tarman, co-pilot of the AWACS, said the aircraft is serving as “the eyes” of the friendly F-15Es that engage in mock dogfights with other F-15Es of the wing playing the role of the Red force. Capt. Nicholas Suppa, assistant director of staff of the wing’s 335th Fighter Squadron, said the training is also a valuable experience for building coalition interoperability. And it gives the fighter pilots the opportunity to receive face-to-face briefs and debriefs with an AWACS crew, he said. (Seymour Johnson report by A1C Marissa Tucker)
The United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force has unveiled a new electronic warfare drone designed to fly with fighter jets into contested airspace, including alongside its fleet of F-35s. RAF says it plans to develop models that draw on the U.S. Air Force’s approach of mating unmanned systems with crewed platforms.