Overview
- The RAF's Red Arrows have started Operation Eagle Hawk in the United States, completing a Washington, D.C., flypast and formally launching their stateside programme with a performance at a Baltimore airshow.
- The tour will take the team to events across several states and culminates in a headline flypast over New York City on July 4 as part of America's 250th anniversary celebrations.
- A promised show-stopper called the 'cascade' will close displays; the manoeuvre climbs into a loop to roughly 6,000 feet before the jets break apart in a cascading formation and roar back over the crowd.
- The Hawks lack long range, so the jets crossed the Atlantic in staged legs with refuelling stop-offs in places such as Iceland, Greenland and Canada, reflecting the logistical limits of fast-jet aerobatic deployments.
- The visit is being framed as a ceremonial reaffirmation of UK–US ties and takes place alongside President Trump’s anniversary events in Washington that featured military flyovers, performer withdrawals and security concerns around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.