Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is commanded from Air Command at High Wycombe and divided into functional groups: No. 1 Group for combat air, No. 2 Group for air mobility, air-to-air refuelling and ISTAR, No. 11 Group for air and space operations including the space domain and cyber, and No. 22 Group for training and recruitment. Squadrons are concentrated on a small number of main operating bases, principally Coningsby and Lossiemouth for the Typhoon force, Marham for the Lightning force, Brize Norton for transport and tankers, and Waddington for ISTAR and remotely piloted aircraft. The RAF Regiment provides ground-based force protection, and the Whole Force construct integrates regular, reserve and civilian personnel.

Doctrine centres on control of the air, global mobility and the ability to operate inside allied command structures rather than independently. Agile Combat Employment, which disperses aircraft across austere and secondary airfields to complicate targeting, has been adopted as the operating model for the combat force, and multi-domain integration with the Royal Navy, Army and allied air forces is the organizing principle for command and control. Standing commitments include quick reaction alert for UK airspace, NATO air policing rotations, and the air component of Operation Shader in Iraq and Syria. On 20 October 2026 the Ministry of Defence announced that RAF Typhoons would fly defensive counter-air missions over Saudi cities and critical infrastructure against Houthi missile and drone attacks, without striking the Houthis, supported by an A400M moving materiel inside the kingdom, military advisers and extended air-to-air refuelling for Saudi air operations.

The combat fleet rests on the Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, operating in air defense and multirole configurations with Meteor, ASRAAM, Paveway IV and Storm Shadow, and on the F-35B Lightning II flown jointly with the Royal Navy from Marham and from the Queen Elizabeth-class carriers. Tranche 1 Typhoons have been withdrawn, with the surviving Tranche 2 and 3 aircraft planned to serve into the 2040s under successive radar and weapons upgrades. Deliveries completing the initial F-35B order finished in April 2026 when three aircraft arrived at Marham with Voyager tanker support, bringing the Lightning Force to around 47 airframes. Support and enabling fleets include the A400M Atlas and C-17 for airlift, the Voyager KC2/KC3 for tanking, the P-8A Poseidon for maritime patrol from Lossiemouth, the RC-135W Rivet Joint for signals intelligence, and the Protector RG1, which has replaced the Reaper in the armed remotely piloted role.

The most consequential recent change is the return of an airborne early warning capability and of a nuclear role. The first E-7 Wedgetail AEW1 landed at Lossiemouth in May 2026 and entered ground and flight testing ahead of handover to No. 8 Squadron, closing the gap left by the retirement of the Sentry AEW1 five years earlier. At the 2025 NATO summit in The Hague the United Kingdom announced the purchase of twelve F-35A aircraft to be assigned to the alliance nuclear mission, giving the RAF an air-delivered nuclear role for the first time since the withdrawal of WE.177 in 1998 and adding a conventional type able to carry weapons the F-35B cannot.

Longer-term recapitalization runs through the Global Combat Air Programme, the trilateral effort with Italy and Japan to field a crewed sixth-generation aircraft by 2035, supported by a supersonic demonstrator intended to fly in 2027 and by work on uncrewed collaborative platforms to operate alongside it. Pressure has grown to place a further Typhoon order to sustain the Warton production line and to avoid a capability trough between Tranche 1 retirement and GCAP entry into service. A Merlin HC4 was lost in a night training accident at Sourton Down in Devon in June 2026, with the loss of all three crew.