4 Regiment Army Air Corps (4 Regt AAC), based at Wattisham Flying Station in Suffolk, has been on Salisbury Plain for Exercise Wessex Storm. The unit deployed in command of an Aviation Task Force of nine helicopters and some 250 soldiers, controlling Apache, Lynx, Merlin and Chinooks flying in support of infantry training on the ground.

Airtrooper Michael Moran, 28 from Southampton, said: “I deployed to Afghanistan this year and this exercise has been a very different style of working. This is the future – we don’t know where we’ll be going and what logistic support there will be, so it’s important we can operate tactically and in austere conditions.

“When we arrived we had to set up our living and working accommodation, thinking about being able to defend ourselves as well as operating the helicopters.”

Exercise Wessex Storm saw the British Army's airborne and armoured reaction forces come together, with the fast and light forces of 16 Air Assault Brigade training with slower but more powerful troops from 12 Armoured Infantry Brigade. It placed troops in a scenario where the airborne infantry had carried out the theatre entry phase of an operation and cleared the way for heavier mechanised forces to take over.

Photograph by Corporal Andy Reddy.