IDF Air Force Invited to Take Part in Joint 'Cobra' Drills With British RAF

Sputnik News

03:17 17.01.2019

Cobra Warrior is the UK Royal Air Force's largest training exercise, in which different countries take part after being invited by the UK. In 2018, the RAF invited Germany and Italy to become a part of the training.

The Israeli Air Force, which is a part of Israeli Defense Forces, will participate in the joint exercises with the UK's RAF for the first time ever, the Jewish Chronicle reported.

The joint drills will take place at Coningsby air base in Lincolnshire this September.

Israel, in its turn, holds annual "Blue Flag" military exercises in which RAF will reportedly take part in for the first time in 2020, marking the first time RAF would train in Israel's airspace.

The defense cooperation between two countries has been intensifying in recent years, which was reflected in particular in 2018 in a joint training seminar between a group of Israeli combat pilots and the UK's Royal Air Force Typhoon pilots.

In 2017, the UK's Air Force, alongside with Israel's, completed three days of joint exercises to test sea rescue capabilities in stormy conditions, also exchanging their experience operating F-35 stealth fighters.

The Cobra Warrior is an exercise of the RAF with allied air forces that are intended to conduct jointly complex combat scenarios.

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