The RAF has concluded its participation in Exercise Rim of the Pacific 2024 (RIMPAC) in Hawaii, the world's largest international maritime exercise.
The RAF has concluded its participation in Exercise Rim of the Pacific 2024 (RIMPAC) in Hawaii, the world's largest international maritime exercise.
For the exercise a pair of Poseidon MRA.1 maritime patrol aircraft were flown 10,000 miles to Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam to participate in an exercise of a scale and complexity unavailable anywhere else in the world.
Air Commodore Paton, ISTAR Force Commander said: “RIMPAC is huge. The Poseidon Force is still in growth, still learning, and to be able to come out here and operate with a whole plethora of capabilities, both surface and sub-surface, is a serious level of complexity for the crews to be able to operate successfully.”
Wing Commander Henderson said “It’s great to see us out here again with our first global deployment. We’ve operated locally in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean, but this is truly another level for Poseidon and a whole team effort.
To be able to deploy to Hawaii and sustain operations at home at the same time shows just how far Poseidon as a force has come, and it’s absolutely amazing to have this opportunity.”
Officer Commanding Air Wing Support, RAF Lossiemouth, and UK Detachment Commander for the exercise
The planning for the exercise took 12 months and represents the latest milestone for RAF maritime patrol representing as it did the largest detachment the Poseidon Force has achieved to date, for the longest amount of time, and at the greatest distance.
Flight Lieutenant Miles, Project Officer for the RAF detachment said “We couldn’t have planned this without reaching into the wider RAF and indeed Defence in order to support getting our aircraft and personnel halfway round the world.”
Understandably, competition to deploy on the exercise was fierce, and preference was given to operators and crews who were already combat ready and established. With entirely different Oceanographics and the tracking of some targets not seen previously, personnel found it a challenge.
For Flight Lieutenant Miles there is significant training benefit: “When we operate in our own backyard, we’re inevitably operating with familiar NATO nations. The Poseidon can operate either independently or tasked by a surface vessel and UK crews are very familiar with both scenarios. What RIMPAC offers us is an opportunity to be tasked by nations which have never operated with maritime patrol aircraft previously, and indeed have operated independently on their own.”
Wing Commander Henderson said: “We’re exploiting opportunities with the other nations particularly in engineering and logistics to see how they operate, how we operate, and how we can better operate together. It’s been an excellent opportunity for the engineers and operations staff to do that.”
Not one sortie was lost to aircraft unserviceability, a testament to the engineering team who worked in high temperatures and humidity.
Returning to Scotland, the personnel from CXX and 201 Squadrons, the Poseidon Line Squadron and the Tactical Operations Centre will resume their role providing global protection to the UK, NATO and our Allies’ submarines and warships.