Aircraft included F-35A Lightning II and F-15E Strike Eagles from U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Africa’s 48th Fighter Wing. RAF Typhoons and F-35Bs also participated, supported by KC-135 Stratotankers from the 100th Air Refuelling Wing.
QinetiQ manages MOD Hebrides and MOD Aberporth under the Long-Term Partnering Agreement. Its teams provided mission rehearsal, planning and specialist operational support for the exercise alongside USAFE and the RAF.
The company also prepared, cleared and managed more than 120,000 square kilometres of air and land space. QinetiQ said the area involved was almost the size of England.
Combat Archer places aircraft, weapons systems and aircrew in challenging conditions to generate operational insight and performance data. It also provides joint training between the RAF and a NATO ally, supporting interoperability and shared operational understanding.
Weapons evaluations were conducted by the Weapon System Evaluation Team from the 83rd Fighter Weapons Squadron at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida. Combat Archer is usually held at Tyndall, but QinetiQ hosted the evaluation team at MOD Hebrides for the 2026 event.
QinetiQ Germany provided a PC-12 D-RMT maritime patrol aircraft to monitor surrounding sea areas and support range safety before live-fire operations. It also supplied a banner target towed by a PC-9B aircraft for weapons training and performance assessment.
QinetiQ Target Systems supplied Banshee Jet 80+ uncrewed aerial vehicles manufactured in Ashford, Kent. The exercise combined range infrastructure, target services and specialist expertise from QinetiQ teams in the UK and Germany.
“This year’s Combat Archer exercise demonstrated the unique breadth of capability QinetiQ offers. The expertise from our teams in both the UK and Germany supported the U.S Air Force and Royal Air Force in the delivery of realistic operational evaluation, strengthening interoperability between allied air forces,” said Lee Rowe, Mission Rehearsal Lead, QinetiQ.
