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Wildcats sink claws into Cobra on RAF’s biggest workout of the year
9 April 2025
Commando Wildcats were thrust into the maelstrom of aerial combat when they joined the RAF’s premier exercise of 2025.
Run twice a year, Cobra Warrior is the Air Force’s principal air combat exercise – think Joint Warrior minus ships and (most) ground forces – spread over a vast area and featuring an international cast.
The RAF provided some of the aerial punch – Typhoons and F-35B Lightnings – supported by Voyager tankers and A400M transporters, alongside Army Air Corps Apache gunships, Turkish F-16 Falcons, Saudi F-15 Strike Eagles and French Rafale Jets.
And into this eclectic mix, the Fleet Air Arm provided two Commando Wildcats from 847 Naval Air Squadron, whose helicopters were required for three phases of the fortnight-long exercise.
RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire served as the hub for Cobra Warrior with RAF Leeming in North Yorkshire acting as a forward base, allowing the exercise’s tentacles to extend into Cumbria, Northumbria and the Scottish borders.
The Wildcats were called upon for two aviation assaults – bread and butter to the Commando Helicopter Force as it’s what it does in support of the Royal Marines.
Here it was the RAF Regiment providing the boots on the ground, landed by Wildcat after Lightnings and Typhoons had knocked out ‘enemy’ air defences – simulated by the team at RAF Spadeadam, just north of Hadrian’s Wall outside Carlisle.
Thereafter, accompanied by Apaches, the commando aviators kept ‘enemy’ troops pinned down allowing the regiment to complete their mission… after which they were returned to base courtesy of the Wildcats.
After two successful aviation assaults, the Wildcats were thrust into another mission regularly practised by CHF: Joint Personnel Recovery, or safely extracting aircrew from behind enemy lines.
In this instance, the Wildcat crews ran the rescue and escorted the vehicles sent in to the pickup site.
Aside from these three missions, involvement in the large-scale exercise allowed the Yeovilton-based fliers to hone a range of skills: interaction with NATO and partner air power, most of which it rarely has the opportunity to train alongside.
One test for 847 was to see how far long range a mission the Wildcats could fly in a single day could operate from their home base of Yeovilton in a single day (RAF Spadeadam, for example, is 275 mile from the helicopter’s Somerset home).
So on the days its participation was required, the squadron sent its Wildcats first to Waddington – where a small detachment of personnel was involved in mission planning, briefing, and debriefing – and then on to their exercise areas.
Alongside the recent training in the Arctic Circle, the winter/early spring training has helped reinforce the breadth of experience in the squadron and underscored the variety of missions it can fly in support of the UK’s Armed Forces.