Inside the top secret RAF spy plane in shadow war with Putin’s forces

The Rivet Joint is shown on a mission to gather intelligence on Russian forces engaged in the all-out attack on Ukraine (Picture: Channel 4, Top Guns: Inside the RAF)

A top secret RAF spy plane shown being threatened with destruction by a Russian fighter jet has been likened to an ‘electronic hoover’ because it sweeps up so much information. 

The giant ‘Rivet Joint’ was filmed being told to leave the Black Sea near Ukraine or it and two escorting RAF Typhoon fighter jets would be ‘destroyed’ by Vladimir Putin’s air arm.  

The tense encounter was captured on the approach to illegally annexed Crimea as the electronic surveillance aircraft gathered vital information about the Kremlin’s forces.  

Crewed by around 30 RAF personnel and bristling with advanced surveillance technology, the Rivet Joint’s mission was so secret even the two RAF fighter pilots tasked with protecting it from harm and intimidation were not told of the objectives.  

The aircraft is considered ‘the eyes and ears of the battlefield’ and is thought to be relaying vital information to Ukrainian forces, possibly including intercepts from mobile phones used by Russian soldiers engaged in the all-out attack.  

The RAF operates three of the 132ft-long spy planes which are considered an extension of the US Air Force’s own fleet.

The jets are thought to owe their name to the Americans’ history of ‘rivet’ modifications to an airframe which can be traced back to the 1950s.

On board, the atmosphere appears to be one of calm focus as crew including pilots, crypto linguists and electronic warfare operators go about their work at computer stations.

The Rivet Joint can sweep up signals on long-distance missions (Picture: RAF)

In radio small talk with one of the Typhoon escorts high over the Romanian coast, a pilot casually spoke about how the occupants had passed the time after taking off from RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire.  

‘We’ve had a few 120m strolls, a bit of food, nice cup of coffee,’ he said.  

Asked by Flt Lt Josh what the coffee is like onboard, the unnamed pilot replied: ‘We have a selection — we have a Starbucks.

‘I’ve had some nice stuff from Yorkshire.’ 

Typhoon pilots Josh and Joe, of 11 Squadron based at RAF Coningsby, also in Lincolnshire, had made 500mph flights from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus to meet up with their ‘package’ over Romania.  

They flew alongside the ‘electronic hoover’ — as Flt Lt Josh described the eavesdropping aircraft — to protect it on the mission over the Black Sea. 

Ahead of the sortie, he said: ‘We know 100% that there’s going to be Russian surface-to-air missile systems that will be looking at us, Russian fighter jets. We don’t know what’s going to happen.’ 

As they approached Crimea, a Russian message transmitted to all three RAF aircraft warned: ‘Ivory Eagle, Ivory Eagle, Ivory Eagle, Delta Echo Zemlya. You are approaching the state border of the Russian Federation combat zone. If you don’t leave, you will be destroyed.’   

The British formation then had a crucial decision to make.    

The stakes at play were underscored in September 2022, when one of two Russian SU-27 jets released a missile in the vicinity of a Rivet Joint on routine patrol over the Black Sea   

After a game of cat and mouse with the interceptor jet, the RAF formation turned around just short of the Crimean coast in the footage captured for Channel 4’s Top Guns: Inside the RAF. 

Military analyst Sean Bell told Metro: ‘Obviously there’s a lot of very sensitive capability wrapped up in there but there’s a typical rule in that the West is providing weapons and capability to the Ukrainians while not getting directly involved.  

‘However, platforms like the Rivet Joint that are the eyes and ears over the battlefield can look deep into Ukraine, can look into Russia and can listen and watch with a variety of sensors to work out what is going on. Undoubtedly that is being used to help Ukrainian forces in their war against the Russian invasion.’ 

A US Air Force briefing slide showing the inside of a Rivet Joint (Picture: US Air Force)

Bell, a former fighter pilot and Air Vice-Marshal, gave an insight into the sophisticated systems onboard the eavesdropping station. 

The capabilities were demonstrated in a milestone journey between NATO’s most southerly point in the Mediterranean to the Barents Sea in the High North last October, the first time one of the jets has flown the route. 

‘I can only surmise what might be available on those aircraft, things like radar technology, listening on the radio waves,’ Bell said.  

‘A good example of that is that Russia has been rife with corruption and they should have secure radios on the battlefield.  

‘But if you haven’t got enough secure radios for everybody then you can’t use them at all because you can’t speak to everybody.  

‘Russia has in the past not procured enough secure radios.

‘Some of the money appears to have been diverted elsewhere and therefore forces a lot of the Russian soldiers to revert to mobile phones or non-secure means. If you have the capability to listen to those means, then it allows you to find out what’s going on.’ 

Flt Lt Josh was shown reacting to a Russian fighter jet close to the illegally annexed Crimean peninsular (Picture: Channel 4, Top Guns: Inside the RAF)

A Typhoon fighter jet of the type used for quick reaction alert launches against potential threats (Picture: Channel 4, Top Guns: Inside the RAF)

Both sides know the Rivet Joint’s purpose but while the Russian forces might want to counteract its presence, the Kremlin is limited in its ability to use force, Bell assesses.  

‘Russia knows full well what the West is doing but because the Rivet Joint is operating in international airspace it is perfectly at liberty to fly there and it would be an unprovoked act of aggression if Russia was to target it,’ he said. ‘But that doesn’t stop Russia being hacked off that the West is able to deploy assets like that which the Russians will know are helping the Ukraine war effort.

‘There is the irony where everyone knows what is going on but the Russians can’t do anything about it. What they can do is bully and threaten.’  

Flt Lt Josh, whose second name was not given, told film-makers of the need to safeguard not just the Rivet Joint’s mission but also the crew, who do not have parachutes and are travelling in an unarmed aircraft.  

In a high stakes game, the Typhoons demonstrate a lethal capability.  

‘The Russians will regularly fly far too close to Western aircraft and put out warnings, all of which are designed to dissuade the West from using its assets,’ Bell said.  

‘As a result of the Rivet Joint appearing to be targeted a few years back there are two Typhoons riding shotgun so the Russians know full well that if they do anything they will be the next to perish. It just ups the ante.

‘We had assumed that with intelligence gathering aircraft in international airspace the Russians would respect the law.

‘But they have knocked down the American Reaper unmanned drone aircraft and they are clearly unhappy that the West is engaged, albeit in international airspace, so there is a massive game of intimidation going on to try to stop the West doing what it does.

‘Put bluntly, they have no choice and if they were to fire a missile that would be an act of war which would be very quickly dealt with.’

In a separate disclosure, figures showing how British jets have been repeatedly scrambled to intercept Russian bombers have been released by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).   

A QRA Typhoon intercepting a Russian TU-160 Blackjack aircraft approaching UK airspace on November 12, 2021 (Picture: RAF/UK MoD)

Seven launches in response to the Kremlin’s long-range ‘Bears’ and other rogue aircraft in or near UK airspace took place last year, the information obtained by Metro shows.   

The launches have remained fairly consistent over the past four years despite tensions escalating between Moscow and the West after Putin’s all-out attack on Ukraine.    

In a further incident, two Norwegian jets rushed to respond after four Russian planes flew close to NATO airspace yesterday. 

The Russian TU-95 bombers, being escorted by two Flanker-D planes in the high north, were closely monitored by the Norweigan Air Force F-35s. 

Major General Øivind Gunnerud, Norwegian Air Chief, said: ‘Our Quick Reaction Alert mission in the High North is important for our national defence and NATO’s collective security.’ 

The MoD has said that RAF aircraft are ‘held at continuous high readiness 24/7’ in order to protect UK and NATO airspace.   

Top Guns: Inside the RAF is available on demand at Channel 4.

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