Source · Select Committees · Defence Committee
Recommendation 60
60
RAF successfully increased operational sorties and performed exceptionally well in challenging Red Flag exercises.
Conclusion
The Chief of the Defence Staff told us that whilst there may be a tension between training and operational sorties, by Spring 2023 the RAF had delivered twice as many operational sorties as in the previous 12 months while also managing to deploy to the US Red Flag series of training events. The Red Flag series had seen the RAF being tested “against some of the most difficult air threats in the world, [and the RAF] did incredibly well. Some of our missile systems are far superior to even the Americans’.”123