Got to admit, one of the most impressive sights I’ve ever seen was a wing attack by the Bentwaters/Woodbridge A-10’s on a mock Convoy at Sculthorpe during a Flintlock exercise in 1987. Over 60 Warhogs in the air at the same time (60 was where I lost count), all at 200 feet and pulling really tight banks right over where I was standing (edge of the Missile Site at West Raynham) 😎 . That was only matched by five C-141’s drop a battalion of the 82 Airborne on Sculthorpe direct from the US on the same exercise, a horzion full of chutes 😮 . Something you don’t see everyday. 😀 😀 😀

thanks

Is there any perticular time to go down?

Nathan

There’s normally no flying on the weekends. Thought the most interesting aircraft I’ve seen there was on a Saturday (B-2 orbiting the airfield, awaiting its F-15 escort before heading to Fairford on RIAT weekend). Its been a while since I’ve been there, but there was a viewing area to the north of the airfield off the A1065, I don’t know if its still there post 9-11. Flying will normally be between 0800 – 1700 unless there is any night flying programmed. Best to keep an eye on what exercises or squadron exchanges are going on at the time on the internet forums for anything interesting.

A few years ago I read the autobiography by the Norwegian leader of this op
The film only covers part of the story,the first attempt was to use Gliders landing in a remote spot but unfortunately they encountered atrocious weather and I think that both the Tugs(Halifaxes ?) and both Gliders crashed ,the survivors being executed.
The team featured in the film actually spent months in remote areas with little food and had some close calls..some of which are in the film, and they had to take some terrible risks to achieve their success.The film stayed very close to the real story and even though the ending seemed far fetched. that is what happened…they managed to sink the ferry mid lake with minimal loss of life.
Sorry cant remember names or details but would be easy to check on the net!

Ray Mears did an excellent documentary on the operation a few years back. In his view the film (with Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris) was a bit of a travesty.

Could always go for a joint defence policy with the UK. Let a flight of RAF jets fly out of Dublin airport for a small fee in return, open up some irish airspace for training, allow irish defence pilots to train with the RAF in fast jets.

You would not even have to do most of that, A couple of F3’s at Valley in a Q shed with exchange Irish air Corps Pilots/WSOs on the detachment. Valley is closer to Dublin than Coningsby is to London and its all water between the two locations, hence the F3’s could break Mach 1 without breaking a lot of windows getting across the Irish sea. It would provide cover for most of the western side of the UK as well as Ireland, including a major target in Cumbria and not cause the political problems of having UK military assets based in the Republic.

BFOUH

Does that acronym mean what I think it means, Mr Cattermole??? :diablo: :diablo: :diablo:

Takes me back to 1960s B of B displays. Somehow the promised F-100 or F101 display team never became much more than dots on the horizon…

William

That had not changed by the 1980’s. At a RAF Halton Families day in 1984, the F-111 from Upper Heyford did his display over Aylesbury and in 1989 I saw two A-10’s from Bentwaters/Woodbridge start to do a display over Bishops Court. The pity for the paying spectators was that they were all at Newtonards airport for the Ulster Airshow, 30 miles away.

Precision Avionics Vectoring Equipment 😀 😀 😀

There was an interesting article in a RAFHS Journal (No 31) by Healey about His time as the defence minister and in it he stated that he would have kept the TSR2 had it been a cost effective answer to the requirement. The big problem being that it was not. In his eyes the F-111K could do the job at a lower cost and it was what the Service Chiefs would have preferred purely on time scale of service entry. The IMF loan was the primary cause of the F-111K’s demise, The cancellation of it being a sweetener to the Left wingers to allow the introduction of prescription charges in the NHS. Thus was left the Buccaneer. Now Healey made a good point about the Bucc in the Journal that he wished that he had pushed the aircraft on to the RAF earlier, as in his view that aircraft was almost as good as the TSR2 or the F-111 and was infinitely cheaper (Which in hindsight was not that far off the mark).

In fact the RAFHS held a seminar on the TSR2 at Filton about 6 years ago and the conclusion of the seminar where that Healey had done the right thing in cancelling the project as it had got completely out of control on cost grounds.

Phantoms were got as a replacement for the P1154 (along with the Harrier).

Follow on to the cancelled F111K was the Bucc, to be replaced by the AFVG project (along with a Anglo French Trainer that became the Jaguar). The French pulling out of AFVG as we had design leadership (and Dasault the French side of the partnership were more interested in doing a VG Mirage). Thus was born the 6 nation MRCA, which ended up as the 3 Nation Tornado