HOW far away are they?Not very.
This isn't a trick of the eye. That Hawk really is rather close to HMS St Albans as the frigate is buzzed during training off Plymouth.
The Saint is undergoing combat training with the Flag Officer Sea Training organisation in Devonport in company with Britain's biggest warship, HMS Ocean, and destroyer HMS Edinburgh.
The Mighty O's being given some 'top-up' training by FOST ahead of some demanding aviation exercises involving Apaches, Chinooks and Merlin, while Edinburgh is readying herself for deployment later in the year after a lengthy refit in Portsmouth.
As for St Albans, she too is regenerating after a few months of maintenance and light duties in the UK following a demanding deployment to the Gulf last summer; she's due to deploy east of Suez again later this spring.
And what better way to waken everyone than an air defence exercise early in the morning?
The jets from Fleet Requirements Air Direction Unit based at Culdrose carried out low-level attacks on all three ships – which from the evidence of this picture is about 65ft above sea level.
The FRADU jets simulate both being buzzed by enemy jets and attacked by enemy missiles... while the bridge teams zig-zag, upper deck gun crews let loose with all weapons and the ops room teams launch countermeasures.
Having given the trio a good workout yesterday, the Hawks will be back tomorrow for FOST's infamous Thursday War which throws the kitchen sink at ships to determine whether they are fit to deploy.
• For a more sedate look at St Albans, she'll be spending three days on the River Dart later this month as a welcome break from being FOSTed.
The ship will be anchored off Dartmouth from March 18-20 and there will be a chance to look around her for free between 10am and 2pm on Saturday 19. Admission is ticket only via the town's tourist information centre because of limited space on boats running from Town Quay out into the harbour.
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