Two Australian F-35A stealth fighter jets will take to the skies over New Zealand for the first time next week to take part in joint military exercises. <\/p>\n
The Royal Australian Air Force jets would be hosted at RNZAF Base Ohakea as part of training with the New Zealand Army and Royal New Zealand Air Force.<\/p>\n
Air Force chief Air Vice-Marshal Darryn Webb said the visit would give the New Zealand Defence Force an opportunity to work alongside “some of the most advanced warfighting technology in the world”. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe exercises include the RAAF establishing an overseas Forward Arming and Refuelling Point for the first time outside Australia,” he said. <\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the two F-35’s would practise jet attacks in the Waiouru Military Training Area, coordinated by New Zealand Army teams on the ground. <\/p>\n
The jets would then take part in rehearsed interceptions involving RNZAF P-8A Poseidon aircraft, before returning to Australia on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Webb said the exercise reflected efforts between the two countries’ air forces to strengthen their ability to operate together. <\/p>\n
“One of the key objectives we have set in working together is to enhance our operational readiness by conducting combined exercises which develop shared combat capability. <\/p>\n
“This exercise is an important step forward on that path.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Australian F-35A stealth fighter jets will take to the skies over New Zealand for the first time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,1403,111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-589875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-australia","tag-defence","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}