EIGHT TYPHOON JETS and around 250 men and women from RAF Lossiemouth have arrived to take part in a two-week exercise in Oman.

The 6 Squadron detachment have begun an intensive programme of training in the desert under Exercise Magic Carpet – honing skills and capabilities that they simply could not undertake at their home base.

OC 6 Squadron, Wing Commander Billy Cooper, said of the mission: “What’s different for us here is we can be assured of reliable weather that means we can fly twelve sorties every day in conditions representative of operations.

“Availability of airspace is good and the ranges are well suited for our sortie profiles. We can practice our strafe attacks and perfect our precision bombing hitting pin-point targets on the ground.

“The support from our Royal Air Force of Oman hosts at Thumrait airbase is fantastic, the facilities here are excellent and they are incredibly welcoming. It is critical that we have the opportunity to work closely with our partners in the Middle East and the Omani hosted Exercise Magic Carpet is the perfect vehicle for that.”

Magic Carpet has been carried out for many years, involving aircraft and many of the specialist support trades that underpin the expeditionary capability of the RAF.

The exercise will prepare the squadron for their deployment to Cyprus next year when they will support the coalition in operations against Daesh.