The challenges being faced by personnel at Moray’s RAF base in caring for their own regular flyers and those from a host of other services and nations is being acknowledged by their station commander this week.
Group Captain Mark Chappell has been paying tribute to the men and women working hard in the less glamorous background jobs at RAF Lossiemouth.
Meal times at the base are extended to accommodate station and exercise personnel during two weeks of the Exercise Joint Warrior seeing an extra 3000 meals served and over 1500litres of bottled water issued.
Meanwhile the increased flying leads to a corresponding increase of fuel consumption – during the last Joint Warrior members of the Logistics and Supply squadron pumping out a total of 2,442,323litres of aviation fuel over just eight days.
Support equipment and infrastructure needs to be transported – and that task falls to the RAF Lossiemouth MT section, another part of the Logistics and Supply squadron who are responsible for shifting around 125,000kg of containers on and around the station on behalf of international visitors.
“RAF Lossiemouth’s 75th anniversary year has been remarkable,” Group Captain Chappell said, adding: “It is fair to say we have been working at quite a pace for many months.
“But Exercise Joint Warrior is an additional challenge for us and it showed the flexibility and adaptability of the excellent workforce here at RAF Lossiemouth.
“Everyone, whatever trade or background, contributed to the smooth running of last year’s exercise and I’m sure this year will be no different.”