In July 2015, MAR visited the UK to cover exercise Indradhanush, a joint military exercise between the Royal Air Force and the Indian Air Force. During the 10 day long exercise between the 21st and 30th July, both air forces pitted their top guns with the aim of enhancing mutual operational understanding between the two air forces via close interaction. The exercise originally started in 2006 and has held four editions so far.
Both airforces utilised their cutting edge fighter aircraft during the exercise. The RAF participated with the Eurofighter Typhoon from No. 3 Squadron based at RAF Coningsby and A330MRTTs from RAF Brize Norton, while the Indian Air Force participated with 4 air superiority Sukhoi Su-30 MKI flankers from No. 2 Squadron based at Tezpur AFS, a C-130J-30, a Boeing C-17 Globemaster from No. 81 Squadron based at Hindon AFS, and an Il-78MKI mid-air refueling tanker from No. 78 Squadron based at Agra AFS.
The fighter jocks engaged each other in simulated aerial combat starting from 1 vs 1, 2 vs 1 & 2 vs 2 before moving on to larger scale formation vs formation scenarios where the red forces were formed by Typhoons and the Blue forces were formed by a mix of Typhoons and Su-30MKIs. The tankers supported the simulated conflict scenarios whereas the transport aircraft were involved in para drop exercises involving the special forces. The fighters aircraft operated from RAF Coningsby, whereas the transport aircraft operated from RAF Brize Norton while the spec ops contingent was based in RAF Hunnington. This exercise was surely a great opportunity for both the air forces to learn from each other and at the same time strengthen the ties between both countries.
Below you can find some images of the aircraft that participated in the exercise:
