Air Drop over Iraq as seen from a RAF Tornado’s Litening Reconnaissance Pod

August 16, 2014 Iraq, Military Aviation, Troubled Areas

David Cenciotti

A humanitarian aid air drop as you have never seen it.

The following footage was filmed by a Litening III reconnaissance pod of a British Tornado GR4 aircraft during a humanitarian aid air drop by a RAF Hercules over Mount Sinjar, Iraq on Aug. 13.

The UK has deployed a “small number” of Tornado from RAF Marham to Akrotiri airbase, in Cyprus, from where the aircraft are available to fly over the crisis area at short notice to provide intelligence and assit the air drop of UK Aid.

UK is expected to escalate its surveillance in Iraq with the commitment of the first RAF Rivet Joint ELINT (Electronic Intelligence) aircraft.

About David Cenciotti

David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

Fluffy Data says:

August 18, 2014 at 4:33 AM

@lawrencedwood:disqus Can we just cut the bigotry? This really doesn’t help.
TheRedLeaf says:

August 20, 2014 at 6:27 AM

I think thats two air-drop runs captured, but what kind of parachutes are those? They look more like pedals rather than anything I’m familiar with.
- Nadim Lahoud says:
  
  August 28, 2014 at 6:13 PM
  
  Looks like Airborne System’s Unicross design: http://www.airborne-sys.com/pages/view/unicross
  
  Low-cost, low-maintenance cargo chute.