Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the youngest military service of the United Kingdom; the RAF and Women's Royal Air Force were formed on 1 Apr 1918.

Current operations

RAF units are both permanently and temporarily assigned to locations worldwide.

Locations

Permanent deployments include:

• UK Air Defence
• Gibraltar
• Ascension Island
• Falkland Islands
• Cyprus
• Nevada (joint training facility in the United States of America

Major temporary operations have included:

• Operation Telic (Iraq)
• Operation Herrick (Afghanistan)
• United States Central Command, Tampa, Florida
• Balkans
• Sierra Leone
• Diego Garcia
• Persian Gulf
• Georgia
• Sudan

Offensive

The RAF operates two series of Harrier (fighter) STOVL (short takeoff and vertical landing) aircraft, from both land and sea bases. It also uses the Tornado GR4 version of the Panavia for strike missions, and will be adopting the Eurofighter Typhoon. The Typhoon replaces the air defense variant of the Tornado, called the F2 or F3in British service, as well as the Jaguar ground support aircraft.

C3I-ISR

Tornado and Harrier aircraft can mount tactical reconnaissance pods, and the RAF increasingly uses unmanned aerial vehicles such as the MQ-9 Reaper. Other aircraft include the R1 signals intelligence and imagery intelligence variant of the BaE Systems Nimrod, as well as the Sentinel R1 synthetic aperture radar surveillance aircraft, derived from the Bomardier Global Express business jet.