SalisburyPlainAviation's video: UK Wargames - Ex Wessex Storm at RAF Keevil 2017 Full HD

During spring (April - May) Wiltshire's former WW2 airfield, RAF Keevil, becomes a foreward operating helicopter base for NATO exercises. All branches of the UK armed forces operate together from this largely disused world-war two airfield and we spent time watching them with a prosumer camcorder. The RAF operated four CH-47 Chinooks and Pumas, the Royal Navy several AW101 Merlins and the British Army rode shotgun on the base operations with four AH-64 Apache gunships and Lynx Wildcat battlefield helicopters. The base was supplied by RAF Airbus A400M Atlas transports, and impressive sight seen flying off such short runway. Two weeks previously an even bigger exercise; Joint Warrior took place and I hope to get good footage for JW 2018 and a new video. RAF Keevil is three miles east of Westbury in England and the same distance north of the main military training area Salisbury Plain, known for Stonehenge. The NATO ground exercises take place on the plain with air support from Keevil which acts as a rough, foreward-operating base for helicopters during these exercises. The base has no infrastructure so the forces fly everything they need in using RAF fixed-wing transports (C-17, A400M and C-130). There is a large contingent of RAF regiment troops guarding the airfield along with those troops that would be flown into 'battle' on the Plain. The final sequence on my video shows these RAF troops being taken home to RAF Brize Norton at the end of the exercise.