The RAF has joined the US and Australia for the biggest Allied combat air exercise ever designed to ensure the forces are prepared for the threat posed by China.
Operating from Nellis Air Base in Nevada on the outskirts of Las Vegas, an RAF detachment of around 300 personnel has been honing its cutting-edge air combat skills.
Exercise Red Flag is the pre-eminent annual air combat training exercise run by the US.
Red Flag began almost half a century ago when the US military realised from experiences in Vietnam, that if pilots survived their first 10 missions, the chances were, they would survive the war.
The exercise was born to simulate those first 10 sorties.
'The tyranny of distance'
After years of looking eastward, now attention turns to a new threat.
The exercise's commander, Colonel Jared J. Hutchinson, said the scenarios at Red Flag 23-1 are "100% focused" on China – with the big challenge now being what the Americans call 'the tyranny of distance' – the miles a task force would need to cover, to reach the fight.
To tackle the tyranny of distance, they have almost tripled the airspace they are training in compared to previous years, vastly increasing the geographical area to challenge participants.
It now stretches from Utah across Nevada, into California and for the first time over the Pacific Ocean.
All the nations involved bring their own expertise to the party, and this problem of distance means what the British bring is key.
The Voyager is the RAF's air-to-air refuelling tanker – basically a civilian airliner, with helpful military adaptions.
It is effectively a force multiplier, enabling aircraft to stay airborne for longer, which is critical to this year's Red Flag.
'The most important exercise that the RAF participates in each year'
Royal Australian Air Force Wing Commander Steve Thornton said: "It's probably the most demanding and challenging exercise from an aircrew perspective."
It is "very, very stressful and that's the whole point", said Group Captain Roger Elliot, the RAF's detachment commander for the exercise.
Air Commodore Howard Edwards, the RAF's Combat Air Force Commander, during a visit to Ex Red Flag, said: "This is the most important exercise that the RAF participates in each year."
He added: "There are a number of reasons for this. First and foremost, the scale and complexity of the exercise tests all of the participants in a way that just does not exist anywhere else in the world."
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