As part of the UK Armed Forces Redundancy Program, and following on from the Army and the RAF earlier this month, on Friday the Royal Navy begun notifying personnel selected for redundancy in Tranche 1 of the program.
Soldiers from the Portsmouth area have swapped Royal duties for freezing Falkland Islands training reports the Portsmouth media. Up to 120 members of the 2nd Battalion Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment have travelled the 8,000 miles south from London to the Falkland Islands.
The RAF’s largest ever aircraft, Voyager, has been flown by an RAF pilot at the Royal International Air Tattoo, Fairford for its first public appearance. Fourteen Voyager aircraft and a complete support package are being provided to the RAF under a 27 year £10.5bn Private Finance Initiative contract signed with the AirTanker consortium.
After 37 years of operational service the Royal Air Force Nimrod R1 was retired from service last month. The Nimrod R1 last operations were Herrick over Afghanistan and Ellamy in Libya in support of NATO forces.
The Royal Air Force largest ever aircraft with a 60 metre wingspan and nearly 60 metres long arrived in the UK for the first time this week, the MOD has announced. The new future strategic tanker aircraft (FSTA) has also been named publicly by the RAF as Voyager.
UK Defence chiefs cast doubt over the safety of Chinook helicopters two years before 29 people were killed in the crash off the coast of Scotland. A previous incident in the Falkland Islands dating back to 1987 with the loss of another Chinook was also included in the investigation.
Britain paid tribute Wednesday to a joint force of Royal Navy and RAF Harrier aircraft with a spectacular flypast to mark their retirement after 41 years of service. A formation of 16 Harriers that became famous during the Falklands’ conflict, took off from RAF Cottesmore into the skies of Lincolnshire.
Harrier jump jets, the Royal Navy's flagship HMS Ark Royal and planned Nimrod spy planes are to be axed and 42,000 Ministry of Defence and armed forces jobs cut by 2015. Unveiling the strategic defence review, British PM David Cameron said defence spending would fall by 8% over four years.
The last airworthy Cold War British Vulcan bomber, and 1982 Falklands conflict veteran, could have made its final public flight on Sunday unless its owners can raise £400,000 by the end of October.
Britain's Prince William is apparently battling to serve in the Falkland Islands with his Royal Air Force (RAF) search and rescue squadron. The pilot Prince is determined to fly alongside colleagues when they are sent to the UK outpost within the next two years.