Mission Shikra
On 5 January 2022, two Armee de l'Air et de l'Espace (AAE, French Air and Space Force) St. Dizier based Rafale B fighters accompanied by an Airbus A330MRTT Phénix (Phoenix) arrived at La Réunion (Reunion Island). The island is located in the Indian Ocean and is an overseas department and region of France.
As part of the power projection mission, the three aircraft flew the 8,800 km stretch non-stop to La Réunion. During the crossing, with the help of two tankers, the fighters needed six to seven refuelling sessions. The mission to La Réunion is named the MARATHON exercise, which is part of the broader framework of mission SHIKRA.
Mission SHIKRA is the umbrella for five different activities and runs from 5 January to 3 February 2022 in the East Africa area. Next to aforementioned MARATHON exercise assembled with Air 181 Detachment, the fighters will join a high-intensity training named KHAMSIN in Djibouti, and they will make a stopover in Egypt.
This latest power projection mission is an additional step in the planning of deploying twenty Rafales and an unconfirmed number of A330 MRTTs from mainland France within 48 hours to the Indo-Pacific region in 2023.
From the photos the following aircraft were identified:
In July 2021, Scramble Magazine reported on Operation HEIFARA WAKEA, where three Rafales flew the 17,000 km stretch to French Polynesia.
Photo by Stéphane Bommert