French Air Force mission this morning to the Black Sea coast.
A pair of Dassault Rafale aircraft took off from the Saint Dizier base at 04:45 CET and headed towards eastern Romania supported during the flight by two tankers departed from Istres AB, a Boeing C-135FR (reg. 739) and an Airbus A330MRTT (reg. F-UJCJ).
The two French fighters provided escort to a Boeing E-3CF (reg. 204) which took off from Avord AB and orbited somewhere on the Romanian coast (we do not have the ADS-B track of that part of the mission) for about 3 hours. Meanwhile, the two Rafale orbited the coast, over Costanta, providing an indirect escort to the AWACS
This is not the first time we have tracked a French mission with assets departed directly from France, but it is the first time we have observed such a large deployment of forces.