Overview
- About 270 paratroopers landed on Salisbury Plain from three RAF A400M transport planes as a fourth aircraft dropped 24 tonnes of supplies in the UK's largest such exercise in more than ten years.
- The British Army’s 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment carried out the jump to demonstrate a Joint Airborne Task Force, a model that pairs 16 Air Assault Brigade with the RAF’s Air Mobility Force.
- Aircraft launched from RAF Brize Norton and made repeated passes over the drop zone, a pattern local outlets tracked as four A400Ms maneuvered over Wiltshire.
- Troops moved off the drop zone to set defensive positions as a test scenario to reinforce a NATO ally, using gear that included Javelin anti-tank missiles and 81mm mortars.
- Brigadier Ed Cartwright said parachuting is the fastest way to put troops almost anywhere in the world, underscoring the A400M’s role since the 2023 retirement of the Hercules fleet.