To my understanding the first QRA contact is a warning, A sort of ‘we know you are here and we are watching you’ and if an escalation happens there is a second QRA ‘loaded for bear’ (pardon the pun).
I was surprised when i heard this but it has been an un-offical thing since the cold war and the only defences the BEAR has is the tail gun (and some do not have them anymore) so it cannot be that much of a threat.
Except if the BEAR has any internal armaments but they are for offense (torpedo’s etc) not defense, but the BEAR is very rugged and there has been some contacts in the past with QRA aircraft and the aircraft has just plodded on and landed safely.
Be intersting to see if the RAF arms the QRA if they are going to use BlackJacks as i said in my first post as they are faster and nuclear capable*
curlyboy
*The BEAR is nuclear capable but the weapons it can carry are mostly for anti shipping and you could tell if it had a nuclear missile as it would have to be carried externally.
Where did you get the impression that the QRA are unarmed? All the QRA aircraft are live armed. Those F.2s shown in the images last week are armed with ASRAAM and AMRAAM. QRA never went away as some people seem to think.
The last UK intercept of Blackjacks was during Feb 2001. Two Blackjacks flew down the east coast of the UK. No nice piccies as they were intercepted by F.3s in the early morning in the pitch black.
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