Two U.S. Marine Corps F-35 fighters start as dots of light far off the wing of the Royal Air Force tanker.

In a complex aerial ballet they slide into position, dropping their speed to 280 knots to stay level with the twin hoses trailing from the British jet.

A series of minute adjustments sees the first pilot push his plane’s probe into the receiving basket of the hose, triggering the flow of aviation fuel at up to 1500 lb per minute.

The second follows suit on the other side of the tanker, all part of Exercise Red Flag, bringing American, British and Australian flyers together over thousands of square miles in the west United States.

The exercise has been run for decades. But in recent years it has taken on a specific focus. If the U.S. and its allies went to war with China it would mean deploying refueling tankers to help fighter planes and ground-attack aircraft overcome vast distances to reach targets across the Indo-Pacific.

Video: US, British and Australian Air Forces train together in Nevada

‘We talk about the tyranny of range,’ said Air Commodore John Lyle of the R.A.F., in the cockpit of a KC-2 Voyager air-to-air refueling tanker.

‘The joy with this aircraft is that we can get airborne, travel vasts distances and be ready to enter the fight. That’s what we are practicing.’

As well as training aircrews in warfighting, he said the massive exercise — three weeks, 100 aircraft, 3,000 personnel — sent a clear message that the US, Britain and Australia were united in protecting global stability from foes.

The two F-35s peel off to the right. They wait on the tanker’s wing for a minute. Then they are gone, off to resume their role as air escorts, facing down enemy aircraft and opening the skies for the rest of the coalition attack.

They are quickly replaced by another two thirsty F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.

Red Flag, billed as the USAF’s pre-eminent annual air training exercise, has been running since 1975.

In previous years it was conducted over some 12,000 square miles of Nevada. But now it has been extended to include parts of Utah and California, as well as the Pacific Coast, to better recreate the vast ranges of that Indo-Pacific theater.

No one is in any doubt that the region is now the greatest worry, as China spreads its influence and intensifies its bellicose rhetoric.

A recently leaked memo from a US four-star general revealed that his ‘gut’ told him the US would be at war with China in 2025.

Gen. Mike Minihan’s verdict was the latest voice to warn that Beijing was closing in on the autonomous island of Taiwan.

And that was even before the US watched the meandering progress of a Chinese spy balloon make its way from Montana to South Carolina, where it was shot down over the ocean.

President Joe Biden raised the issue in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday.

‘I’m committed to work with China where we can advance American interests and benefit the world,’ he said.

‘Make no mistake about it: As we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did.

U.S.A.F. Colonel Jared ‘Jabba’ Hutchinson, commander of 414th Combat Training Squadron who leads the Red Flag exercise, said Red Flag was geared towards the Pentagon’s national defense strategy and its warning to keep pace with China.

That meant that during the exercise US, British and Australian forces were up against American pilots trained to fight like Chinese pilots.

‘They fly the F-16s and the F-35s,’ he told DailyMail.com on the ground at Nellis Air Force Base. ‘And they replicate all of the Chinese fighters through their fourth generation and fifth generation aircraft.

Outside the window, the F-35s have gone. Their place has been taken by four R.A.F. Typhoons, the European-built fourth-generation multirole fighter.

Their role is air-to-air combat.

The space under each wing is now starting to resemble a gas station forecourt, albeit one that is floating at 17,000 feet over Nevada’s snow-capped mountains.

Two U.S.A.F. E18 Growlers refuel, before returning to their electronic warfare role, knocking out enemy ground defenses by neutralizing radar systems.

More Typhoons are expected next on the refueling conveyor belt.

Wednesday’s mission, said Flt. Lt. Mark Scott, the Voyager’s captain, was to hunt down and strike a convoy of ballistic missiles and a convoy of anti-satellite missiles.

‘All the aircraft carry a pod which simulates the missiles of bombs they carry, and that allows you to find that if one aircraft shoots at another whether it was a shot that would be successful … would it have killed them. That’s a capability we don’t have in the U.K.,’ he said.

‘This is as realistic as we can do it in a live environment.’

By the end of the day, with formations of fighters arriving every few minutes, he will have delivered about 80,000 lb of fuel to some of the world’s most advanced warplanes.

Two Typhoons linger longer than expected off the left wing. The tanker is paying a time penalty after enemy warplanes got too close.

In a combat zone it would have taken evasive action. But in the real world, constrained by commercial air lanes, the Typhoons stay on the right-hand-wing and serve a time penalty, as if the RAF Voyager had been forced out of position and they had flown further.

Lyle said the crew would not know until later whether they had emerged victorious from the exercise.

‘The main thing is the coalition, the strength of purpose and the message it sends that we are working with our Australian partners and the US … it makes clear we all have the same views on global stability, access, and making sure that we can deliver air power effectively,’ he said.

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