Buccaneer versus Tornado: there's only one way to find out...

[GliderNoMore]

Ah, the venerable Buccaneer…

As an air cadet, circa 1976, I was standing behind the controllers on a tower visit to the Holbeach ranges. Following a flight of Harriers which came in and shot up the targets, we were informed that the next traffic would involve USAF F111’s. Ooh – exotic foreigners! There was much anticipation; unfortunately, there was also much clag and in due course our friends from across the pond called in to say that the cloud base was below 1000 feet and they were scrubbing – boo!

Moments later, one-by-one three Buccaneers literally tumbled down through the clag, stabilising in an instant, hit their targets and powered out – wow! Wow!!!

The Bucc was eventually replaced by the Tornado; can those who flew both please venture as to whether or not this was a good move?

Thanks.

[Flarkey]

I flew neither and am not sure if it was a good move or not.

Hope that helps!

[L J R]

There is more to bombing than going to the same academic range day in day out......

[Yeller_Gait]

Like Flarkey I did not fly either, either.

But the Bucc was certainly quieter ;when you lived at Lossie that made a difference.

Y_G

[BEagle]

I'm sure that replacing the old analogue servos in the Buccaneer bombing computer which, once the accept bar had been squeezed, all voted on when to release the weapon, was probably a good thing, given the computing power of digital avionics. Tornado ground mapping radar is probably rather easier to use than the Blue Parrot radar in the Bucc was as well.

As for airframes?

Improved Buccaneer with updated avionics and radar - now, that would have been interesting!

[nunquamparatus]

I shall give a former colleague of mine a nudge on Facebook as he flew the Bucc and the Tornado before coming to fly F/A2 Sea Harriers on exchange.

Apparently he earned himself the moniker of 'Crap Pilot' at Lossiemouth but I'm sure he will spin that dit better than I !!!

Brother Parker, where art thou?

[matkat]

BEagle, updating the avionics and radar is something but repairing/replacing the main spar on the whole fleet quiete another unfortunately.

[Arclite01]

Matkat - I think Beagle was suggesting a 'new' updated version of the Buccaneer - not refurb the fleet as you suggest.

Actually that approach (old airframe, new technology) might work well for several airframes - not least a mosquito built from carbon fibre/composite with a pair of turboprops - great intruder type aeroplane for sure...........

Hmmm


Arc

[BEagle]

As the famous Buccaneer pilot Bruce Chapple once said "Buccaneers weren't built, they were quarried! You don't go over hills, you go through them - and you look for things to ram!"

Yes, I was indeed referring to a new build (or quarrying).

By the way, the Mosquito thing has been somewhat exaggerated. An acceptable wartime design but with major low speed handling and asymmetric issues which wouldn't be acceptable today.

I don't think that many would consider going to war in a 'plastic plane' - the A-10 is a much better choice for the role to which you refer. Even if it is pig ugly!

[HAR84]

I never had the honour of working on the Buccs but during Red Flag in 89 I witnessed a bucc returning with wire strike damage to the belly and lower aerials, If the story of the crew is to be believed the barbered wire fence they hit was a little over 5' high. Good old ground effect (Even if the fence was higher than that they were still pretty low).

[kluge]

Wasn't the Blackburn B-108 the proposed uprated Buccanear ?

Only to lose to the TSR2.........and so the story goes :{

[BEagle]

B-108 was a developed Buccaneer offered by Blackburn to meet the Canberra replacement requirement, but didn't meet the conventional attack requirements demanded for the TSR2.

I was thinking more of the P150 'thin wing' re-heated digital Buccaneer put forward 40 years ago - and resolutely turned down by Healey. Its only legacy to the S2 was the very useful bomb door fuel tank.....:mad:

[foldingwings]

Well I must have been really lucky as I have flown both - my last sortie in a Bucc was on Nov 14 last year at Thunder City but I had 2500 hrs on it prior to that! Sadly, but perhaps not when you read further, I only managed about 800 on the GR1.

In my view, and notwithstanding the digital wizardry of the GR1, the Bucc was a much better platform for almost everything that it was required to do in both overland and over water roles in the RAF. It was a much more comfortable ride at lowlevel over land or sea and it could fly some 15,000ft higher than a Tornado at high level; that's if you can call the paltry height that the Tornado cruises at to be high level. It was stable both as an AAR receiver and provider and whilst it couldn't match the Tornado for speed at low level when the latter was clean it could actually carry more ordinance further and at a higher sustainable speed for longer thanks to its rotating bomb door. As I stated on a previous thread, a Bucc could actually fly round the World without having to air-to-air refuel (we planned it but were stopped from doing it by RAFG because it would be an embarrassing act that its replacement the Tornado couldn't contemplate).

A Buccaneer 2 Star, as it was referred to by Roy Boot and his team at Brough, would have waxed most at low level in the role and provided a pretty good late 20th century mud mover in the RAF inventory.

By the way, it was never resparred after the 2 accidents when, first, a folding wing locking bolt fell out on a sortie in RAFG and then, second, when the wing broke off on Red Flag which saw a second 6-month grounding during my time on the Bucc; it just had the cracks that were repairable in its spectacle main spar smoothed out. Sadly, after that, however, its days were numbered.

Avionics aside, the Bucc gets it for me and anyway, most navs preferred the Mk 1 eyeball even when the Kalman Filtered Tornado allowed you to follow the green writing which most often resulted in the unwary getting lost!

And as the song goes:

Give Me Buccaneers They're British Through and Through
The Banana Jet the Best We've Had Yet
We Were the Last of the Few!:D

Yours proudly

Foldingwings

[Alex Whittingham]

Weren't the Tornado avionics trialled in a Bucc? I seem to remember seeing the aircraft at West Freugh on one of my BFT landaways in 1980.

[Molesworth Hold]

Weren't the Tornado avionics trialled in a Bucc? I seem to remember seeing the aircraft at West Freugh on one of my BFT landaways in 1980.

'Life with a Buccaneer' - Tornado Avionics Trials (http://www.blackburn-buccaneer.co.uk/Pages1_files/Radar_Index.html)

[Double Zero]

I seem to recall being told that a fully loaded Buccaneer was in fact faster than a fully loaded Phantom ( low level ).

Surely there's a market for a modern job with instruments for humans, + internal / conformal weapon carriage - hang on, F-35 anyone ?!

[tu chan go]

I flew both........

The avionics and weapons system in the Tornado is superb but its a pain to fly............

The Buccaneer was a joy to fly but the avionics and weapons system was a pain.......

So...... as a pilot, the Bucc gets my vote..........but I'd rather go to war in a GR4 as its all well and good enjoying the ride to the target but not much use if you can't hit it with anything useful when you get there.

[green granite]

Moments later, one-by-one three Buccaneers literally tumbled down through the clag

I remember an airshow at Duxford with really horrible weather and the cloud base about 800' very little could fly other than some local based stuff when the commentator announced that a Bucc would be arriving shortly, it did pulling very hard in a turn to run through at about a 100' having eye-balled it down the M11 at low level. :ok:

[mr fish]

i may be missing the point entirely but can i point out the small fact that
bucc is better looking.
mind you, i think rhino is better looking than ADV, so what do i know!!!

[ericferret]

Another falling out of the clag story involves that most warlike of machines the Westland Sioux.''

Standing on one of the helipads at Bessbrook Mill 1975 was an RAF squadron leader with his number 2 telling all the world how the weather was appalling and the mighty Wessex would not be going anywhere.

Out of the cloud dropped a Sioux flown by one Sgt G Laverton. To discomfort the Wessex crew even further his body armour was adorned with a large dayglo superman "S" !!!!!!!!

Army, big grins all round. Airforce, sad shaking of heads and off to check to weather.

[BentStick]

You must be a Yank then!!

Yup, and if you can't get to and hit a target on an "Academic" range in a bit of clag, how will you fare in the fog of war................?

As demonstrated in GW1 - very well thank you!

Oh and by the way bastOn- your flip on LRJs nationality is way off.

[Pontius Navigator]

Another falling out of the clag story involves .

The Nimrod.

One day, bumbling around the North Sea, as one did, we were called by a Rig Support helos for the weather and cloudbase as we were near his rig.

"About 200 foot ish"

How ish?

"Well 20-30 feet lessish"

I'll call it a day he said, the deck's at 240 feet.

Couldn't see what his problem was :ok:

[Doctor Cruces]

I was at Holbeach '88 to '90.
4 x Tonkas from TWCU arrive to do some toss bombing on the far ship target (can't quite remember the number, 8 I think).

Anyway, out of 16 bombs (4X4) 14 "DH"s, ie within the 50 foot circle round the target. Of those 14, 12 hit the ship and 2 just missed so the real thing would have done lots of damage. The 2 outside the circle? Well, one would have taken the bow out and t'other would have had the stern off.

Impressed, I certainly was.

I can imagine a Bucc with Tonka avionics and a well trained crew would have been magnificent.

Doc C

[Double Zero]

Wasn't there a Buccaneer with development Tornado kit, which led the Test Pilots to wonder ' why are we bothering with Tornado ' ?!

Obviously needed upgrading or a revised airframe / engines, but overall seems to have worked.

Not sure what it would be like at medium level, then again the Tornado was not a spectacular success at that either...

My own ( peripheral ) experience of the Bucc' was the chase / photographic examples at West Freugh, green & yellow; the staish authorised an air-air photo sortie with an Andover, self thankfully not involved.

When the photo's were printed, it turned out the aircraft's upper surfaces had been liberally coated in guano by the resident Jackdaws - C/O was not a happy bunny, and one has to wonder about inspection procedures !

[Transall]

"As I stated on a previous thread, a Bucc could actually fly round the World without having to air-to-air refuel (we planned it but were stopped from doing it by RAFG because it would be an embarrassing act that its replacement the Tornado couldn't contemplate)."

Hi,

That sounds amazing.
Which route would you have taken? I suppose it would not have been around the equator.
More Northern routes would have upset the Russians and the Chinese more than RAFG.:}
Would it have been a circle around the Northpole, taking off from Norway?

Best regards, Transall.

[foldingwings]

Transall,

You misunderstand me or I have misled you. It would have taken about 30 days, with stop-offs on route, crossing the Pacific via a well-chosen route where the longest leg would have been Hickom to McLellan (2300nms) achievable with 23,000lbs (inc. bomb bay ferry tank) of gas in a Bucc at high level. The plan was to be escorted by a VC10 with spare engines, wheels etc and support groundcrew but no AAR (a pax/freight VC10 rather than a tanker).

In true Bucc spirit we would have visited most of the fleshpots of the World on route and taken a couple of days R&R on the way in those that provided the most pleasure (of course, for fear of being classed as early day New Labour politicians, we didn't tell RAFG that last bit. R&R is R&R after all!).

The point in my post was that we could do it without AAR whereas the GR1 couldn't even have got across the Atlantic let alone the Pacific without tanker support.

The Atlantic was easy for a Bucc. The Navy were the first to prove the Bucc eastbound direct from Newfoundland to Lossie without AAR and I have personally flown St Mawgan to Lajes to Gander without AAR on a westbound Atlantic crossing.

Foldie

[hulahoop7]

Your post brings me back to my recent question about blackbuck. i.e. why didn't the bucs do it. Hmm. This issue with using up oil didn't appear to be a problem for you.:confused:

[Transall]

Thanks for the explanation, Foldie.

It was a magnificent plan.:ok:

Cheers, Transall.

[angels]

And there was me hoping this thread would provide us with more marvellous footage of Bucs going about their business at zero feet....:E

[effortless]

Totally different aircraft I know but I was watching an F22 last year and the side view seemed vagely reminiscent of the Flying Banana. Silly old man's thought I know.

[foldingwings]

hulahoop,

I refer you back to:

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircrew/368129-bucs-black-buck.html

In my post #9 of that thread I stated:

Yes it did have limited gear box oil availability but at least 2 did actually deploy to the Falklands after Corporate was over to let the Argentinians know that we could deploy a strike force to protect the islands if that indeed became necessary. I was on Buccs at Laarbruch at the time and I believe that although the Bucc was considered for Black Buck it was eventually decided not to use it as we, in Germany, were still assigned to SACEUR and those at Lossie were assigned to SACLANT with all that that entailed on the Strike options.


Seems clear enough to me! However, for clarification, the problem was the length of the sortie from Ascension to Stanley, some 3800nms (one way) which, at 0.8M, would have taken just under 8 hours. Without a landing option on Corporate that turned the distance into 7600nms and rather more than the Bucc gearbox oil (or my ass) would last. Hickom to McLennan (with a bomb bay fuel tank and therefore no bombs), some 4.8 hours, was a mere bagatelle compared to a round-trip Ascension/Stanley/Ascension!

32 years ago, I flew a 4-hr maritime attack sortie in a Bucc from Honington deep into the Atlantic (with AAR) and back (to Mildenhall because some dope blacked the runway at Honington) without any gearbox oil problems.

Hope that helps

Foldie

[althenick]

Also no one has mentioned that the Bucc could land on an Aircraft carrier

[GreenKnight121]

If a real one was available.

[andyy]

The US have a fair few - presumably there was some cross decking in the good old days?

[Banana Boy]

Like tu chan go, I had the honour to fly both types...and his comments about separating the flying / going to war issues are spot on. I wouldn't fancy a high threat MEZ pen in the Bucc, (not really sure I relish it in a GR4 either for that matter) but for the sheer pleasure of flying an aircraft around the Highlands, ridge rolling at low level - it would have to be the Bucc every time.

Ask me about flying the Bucc at lower speeds, sometimes cross-controlled going around finals, and I might have to think a little harder.....

....nah!....on Thursday I confessed....BUCCANEERS WERE BEST!!!:)

[BEagle]

Ask me about flying the Bucc at lower speeds, sometimes cross-controlled going around finals, and I might have to think a little harder.....

Quite so. The sheer workload involved with flying the Buccaneer from a tactical formation break into the circuit to a 45-25-25 landing, at night, whilst keeping an eye on the aircraft ahead and trying to avoid its wake, was quite the most demanding flying I've ever attempted.

I wasn't good enough; hats off to those who were!

[foldingwings]

If you are a proper fan look here:

Amazon.co.uk: Used and New: The Buccaneer Songbook (The Buccaneer Songbook: An Anthology of Drinking Songs) (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B0016988E4/ref=sr_1_olp_1?ie=UTF8&s=gateway&qid=1240495711&sr=8-1)

Foldie

[dmanton300]

Foldie. . thanks for that, one click ordered in a heartbeat! My dad spent many years as a bombhead on Buccaneers, 1's and 2's. So after I've giggled a bit I will pass it on to him with pleasure.

Growing up with a dad who did that, you can imagine we're a Buccaneer family through and through. Quarried indeed. . . .

[engineer(retard)]

Parrot might have been a pile of cack for operators but it could be fixed in austere locations. Providing there was a handy radio shack.

regards

retard

[foldingwings]

I'm not so sure that the Blue Parrot was a pile of cack in the maritime role; it certainly did the job of locating the bad guys in a rolling sea pretty well! Over land it was a bit of an issue but then it was never designed to be used as a navaid and it was OK at Nordhorn on Tgt 1 even producing the occasional radar laydown DH:}!

Foldie

[glad rag]

Interesting banter; were there any limiting thermal limits on the Bucc or did it just not go fast enough??

:suspect:

[L J R]

For what it is worth, even the F-111 only had limiting Skin Temp that generally kicked in above approx M2.2, and I have occasionally seen it NOT to be a factor until M2.3+. :ok:

Presume Bucc - For all its glory cannot go there, and the Tornado lacks enough (internal) fuel to sustain that number for any time sufficient to be a factor, and B4 you raise the Tornado's fuel - If it carreid External Tannks to go the distance, its Fuel Tank Drag = No-Go to much above the Mach 1 number (Ignoring of course the Release to Servie Lims:=).

SR-71 on the other hand...... :eek:

[engineer(retard)]

Setting up the locked on ranges was a pig, In the end we asked the crews where they would like it to be most accurate as the output tended to be non-linear.

regards

retard

[glad rag]

Just been shown this

YouTube - RAF Buccaneer - NATO Opengate - Low Level Anti-Ship (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4vkBWLmnZA)

[Ivan Rogov]

Wasn't the Bucc the booby prize once all the other projects had been cancelled?

From my sketchy history it went TSR 2, F-111K, Buccaneer. I understand from previous threads that the TSR 2 was never realy going to work (even if it looked great). Given that the F-111 made it to service was it much better than the Bucc, and would the Tornado have ever been required?

Wasn't the F-111 even considered a strategic bomber in one version, could it have done the black buck raids? :E

[foldingwings]

glad rag

YouTube - RAF Buccaneer - NATO Opengate - Low Level Anti-Ship

An extract from '12 Squadron Buccaneers' which was released as a support film (in the days when cinemas showed such things) in the late 70s (I had just left the squadron) before the 'big movie'. An excellent production directed by Hugh Hudson before he made Chariots of Fire.

Foldie

[threeputt]

Ivan Rogof

The F111 was indeed a strategic asset. It operated, in USAF service, with SAC and TAC. Exercises Giant Voice (US) and Double Top (UK) involved them both at some time.

3P:ok:

[brickhistory]

ivan, the FB-111 was the SAC-umcized version.


When the United Kingdom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom) canceled its order for the F-111K in 1968, 48 K-model airframes in early production were converted to FB-111As.[31] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-111#cite_note-Gunston_p87-30) The FB-111A featured longer F-111B wings for greater range and load-carrying ability. The bomber variant was 2 ft 1 in (63 cm) longer than the F-111A.

[32] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-111#cite_note-Miller_p38-31) Its fuel capacity was increased by 585 gallons (2,214 L) and had stronger landing gear (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_gear) to compensate for the higher maximum takeoff weight of 119,250 lb (54,105 kg). All but the first aircraft had the Triple Plow 2 intakes and the TF30-P-7 with 12,500 lbf (56 kN) dry and 20,350 lbf (90 kN) afterburning thrust.[33] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-111#cite_note-Baug_FB-111A-32)

The FB-111A had new electronics, known as the SAC Mk IIB suite. The Mk IIB retained the F-111A's Texas Instruments AN/ANPQ-134 terrain-following radar and Honeywell AN/APN-167 radar altimeter. Radar was the General Electric AN/APQ-114, with a new north-oriented display, a beacon tracking mode, and a photo recording mode. To those components, the FB-111A added a Rockwell AN/AJN-16 inertial navigation system, Singer-Kearfott (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kearfott_Guidance_%26_Navigation_Corporation) AN/APN-185 Doppler radar, and the Litton AN/ASQ-119 Astrotracker astrocompass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrocompass), which allowed navigation by stellar positioning (a similar system had been used on the SR-71 Blackbird (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-71_Blackbird)). A Horizontal Situation Display was added along with the AN/AYK-6 cockpit display. A unique feature of the FB-111A was that the TFR was integrated into the automatic flight control system, allowing "hands-off" flight at high speeds and low levels (down to 200 ft), even in adverse weather.



The F-111D/F were tactical.

As for 'doing it,' yes, they could have.

F-111Fs were the strikers for the 1986 Libya raid - UK to Tripoli and back going the long way around France and Spain, some 12 hours in the seats.

As always, the key to any sort of operation is tanker support, some 29 tankers supporting this raid.

[45-25-25]

During Gulf War Mk 1, Operation Granby, Buccaneers flew out to Bahrain with ony 3 days notice to provide a Laser designation capability for the Tornado. All the Buccaneers flew 9 hour flights direct to Muharraq with tanker support and had no problem with oil consumption. Previously in the early days of Martel I flew a 9 hour sortie on a trial also with no problem.

At a late stage of the Gulf War, once Air Supremacy had been gained, the Buccaneers were carrying their own Paveway bombs and on one sortie, when the Tornados had missed the target and had to Bingo out because of fuel, the Buccaneers remained behind, self designated, took the targets out, climbed to 39000 feet, overtook the Tornados who were plugged in to the tanker and arrived back at base 40 minutes before the Tonkas.

At a Reception following the War in an unguarded moment General de la Billiere quietly said that the Buccaneer had "saved the Tornado's Bacon".

The Buccaneer Team did a brilliant and, as ever, unsung job.

[BEagle]

The Buccaneer Team did a brilliant and, as ever, unsung job.

Indeed! I always wondered what the Bucc mates were thinking to themselves as we took those Buccaneer/Tornado formation towards Iraq, with all the Tornado refuelling that was invariably needed.

Mind you, if you add up the number of Tanker, Tornado and Buccaneer sorties needed for all that bridge-plinking and then think how many Vulcans (with updated avionics) would have been needed for the job....:hmm:

Our stupid MoD and its 'capability holidays'........:mad:

[jindabyne]

Foldie - some incredibly good-looking blokes in that film?

[Romeo Oscar Golf]

I wouldn't mind betting that they're wrinkly old bu**ers now!:}

As a not so wrinkly, but equally old bu**er and and a one time Navrad leader of the better Honington based Squadron, I can concur that the Blue Parrot was not the best aid at low level over land. Despite using the tried an tested methods of the V-Force the night low level nav and bombing exercises were not particularly successful and very unpopular with the crews. However I did get three very good pentax SLR cameras for my troubles. They were used to record the "marking" of the en-route targets.

[NURSE]

Wasn't the Bucc ment to get the INS system fitted to the Jaguar as part of an upgrade?

Certainly remember the pics and video of Buccaneers over Lebanon in the 80's. Just a pity HMG's of various persuasions didn't invest in the Buccaneer as it was certainly a world class aircraft.

[baaldgeet]

I don't think anyone doubts the capability of the crews or the Buccaneer itself, but it's pointless going down the road of what if? (upgraded avionics, reheat etc etc). You might as well say what if the Tornado had a bubble canopy, twin fins and better engines? :rolleyes:

The Pave Spike Buccs did a great job, but if yr looking at bombs on target vs bombs dropped, it's hard to beat the GR1/TIALD combination in '91. Sod all training or work-up, the 2nd pod being made up of spares for the first and yet were the 2nd highest scoring system in theatre (behind the F117).

[Gaz ED]

Sandra and Tracey - the TIALD pods at Tabuk, looked after by a bunch of long-haired civvies, who must have been on lots of money. The pods were hard-wired into the L/H shoulder pylons, so if the a/c went t*ts, the pod had to be dis-connected and re-connected in a tortuous process.

Lots of good videos from that time, including the rather dis-concerting sight (for groundcrew) of an IQAF Land Rover speeding into a Mk3 HAS about 10 seconds before 2 1000LB LGBs' marmalised it.

Dug a slit trench well away from the HASs' when we got back to Laarbruch!

[Snapshot]

Angels,
you asked to see some low level stuff...
Try here, Blackburn Buccaneer Homepage EVERYTHING Buccaneer (http://www.blackburnbuccaneer.co.uk)
a video I quickly put together about 2 years ago of low level Bucc's with some of my pics!
Unfortunately, the music I added with the vid, which was awesome,
has been removed by Youtube as Nickleback where not happy! :\
(Guess it was their music!!!)
A fitting title though, "Where have all the good times gone?"

Also all the R/T from the self designated Pavespike attack on the
Iraqi An-12 from Gulf War 1 has gone too which is equally unfortunate!
However, I'm sure the low level part shall hit the spot if?

If you REALLY want to see it with sound, I can dig out my original :oh:

'Faster, Longer, Lower'


and yes, she was ('is' if you're in Cape Town) better looking!
This pic was taken during the flypasts seen on the video from my link above.
All the usual data removed so not to upset pprune rules :=
AB

http://www.avcollect2.co.uk/buccaneer/aircraft/buccaneer/XV352_tain1.jpg
AB

[foldingwings]

Jinda,

some incredibly good-looking blokes in that film

Alas, not so, as I had been posted and only took part in the pre-sequencing still shots at Gib on the previous detachment!:ok:

ROG,

I wouldn't mind betting that they're wrinkly old bu**ers now!

Aha, not so, unless you are referring to our livers but then you guys on 208 never could drink!:}

Foldie

[glad rag]

YouTube - Tu-22m3 is a supersonic bomber - Low pass!! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAhWU19etQM&NR=1)

[BEagle]

Foldie - some incredibly good-looking blokes in that film?

I guess I know the one you mean.....;)

Looked like a fun detachment!

[DunIan]

Gaz Ed

"Sandra and Tracey - the TIALD pods at Tabuk, looked after by a bunch of long-haired civvies, who must have been on lots of money. The pods were hard-wired into the L/H shoulder pylons, so if the a/c went t*ts, the pod had to be dis-connected and re-connected in a tortuous process. "

I object to being called a lomg-haired civvy, lol, and they were not hard wired they used the same connector they use today.

Ian

[Ogre]

Sorry to be a pedant, but it was "Sharon" not Sandra, after the Viz characters.

[flipflopman RB199]

Sorry to be a pedant, but it was "Sharon" not Sandra, after the Viz characters.

Ogre,

The Viz characters are actually called Sandra and Tracey, and as far as I'm aware, just as DunIan stated, this is what the pods were called. :ok:


Flipflopman

[engineer(retard)]

DunIan

But do you still have the beard that reaches your navel?

regards

retard

[barnstormer1968]

Glad rag
Nice cip. I also liked

Hunter Jet - Low Pass! 1000 Km/h

Which was just below in the line up.

[Gaz ED]

The Fat Slags is a comic strip (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_strip) appearing in the "alternative (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_comics)" British (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom) comic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic) Viz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viz_(comics)). The eponymous slags (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slag_(slang)) are Sandra Burke and Tracey Tunstall, known to other characters as San and Tray. They are depicted as overweight, eating large amounts of food, mainly chips, while also having a lot of casual sex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casual_sex). As with other Viz strips, the strip's authors use a brash writing style, avoiding political correctness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness). "Slag" is a Britishism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britishism) for "slut (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slut)", or loose woman.
The Slags' eating frequently follows a night of binge drinking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binge_drinking), and the circumstances of the sex or the partner in question are rarely an issue - they have been known to leap on delivery men or workmen for gratification, with the targeted man rarely given an opportunity to resist or escape. Both slags regularly enjoy carnal relations with Baz, a local jobless dropout who divides his time between drinking, committing crime, and having sex with San and Tray. Baz's good-natured wife, Thelma, often finds out that Baz is cheating on her, but invariably forgives him. The other major character in the strip is Baz's slightly more successful friend, Dave, who works as a refuse collector (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refuse_collector), but earns most of his income through benefit fraud (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_fraud).
Whilst most Viz characters are recognisably from North East England (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_East_England), with the comic largely written in Geordie dialect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geordie), the Fat Slags and their friends converse with a Nottingham (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nottingham) accent. This originates with the character's creator Graham Dury who, unlike the Geordie founder of Viz, is originally from that area.
Both characters are noticeably warm-hearted and easy-going, and their friendship is never undermined by their conquests. Although both of the Slags are somewhat stupid - albeit good-natured - nymphomaniacs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymphomaniacs), Tray is marginally more intelligent and literate than San, who is marginally more nymphomaniacal than Tray. These factors, combined with Tray's more dominant personality, make Tray the leader and San the follower in their adventures. One strip parodying the Batman films featured Tray as Batslag and San as Nobbin. In another strip, San got pregnant and brought the baby to term, tearfully vowing that she was prepared to make any sacrifice for her daughter's happiness. In the very next panel, realising that motherhood would conflict with her pub-crawling, she gave up the baby for adoption.
Tray normally wears tight-fitting Capri pants whilst San normally wears a too-small skirt; since the latter garment has more potential for jokes, San tends to get involved in more slapstick than Tray does. Although neither Slag has ever refused alcoholic refreshment in any setting, their favourite place to tipple is the "Dog and Hammer" pub, somewhere in Fulchester. Their run-down home - with its floor-level collection of alcohol cans, takeaway containers and cigarette butts - is at 10, **** Street, Fulchester.
Their excessive lifestyle is a parody of British ladette (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladette) culture. Viz creator Chris Donald (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Donald) refers to this in his book, where he also mentions that the portrayal of the Slags was criticised by feminists writing in the Guardian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian) newspaper. At the time of these criticisms the Fat Slags had not appeared in the magazine for more than a year, but as a direct response to the criticism they were immediately resurrected for the next issue, in which they had a humorous run-in with the feminist Millie Tant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millie_Tant). Donald later questioned why the Guardian had slated the portrayals of the Slags, but hadn't mentioned that the two male characters were portrayed as a cheating layabout and a fraudster, and that the strip's only "well-behaved" character, Thelma, was a woman.
In 1992, a Fat Slags single was released, a cover of the 1963 Cliff Richard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Richard) hit Summer Holiday (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Holiday_(song)). The b-side (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-side) was a track called Dance of the Handbags (Oh Lordy! It's The Fat Slags). Both tracks were produced by Mike Stock and Pete Watermen, two of the producers Stock Aitken Waterman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_Aitken_Waterman). The single failed to enter the music charts.
The characters once appeared in a UK television advert for energy drink Lucozade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucozade), saying "Get it out of our fridge!" in unison.

[DunIan]

Definitely Sandra and Tracey, I still have the pics.

The names were actually reversed to start with.

retard

It was never that long, much shorter now as there are a few grey bits in it.

Ian

[Ogre]

I stand corrected (well actually I'm sitting!)

Who was it that complained when her name was used for one of the later pods?

Ogre

[The B Word]

...and just to prove it, here is a picture of the lovely "Sandra"...or "San" to her (fat) mate...

http://sistemadearmas.sites.uol.com.br/ca/pdltialdgolfo.jpg

[DunIan]

Ogre

C2, Tina
201, Michelle
102, Rachel
103, Becky
104, Louise
205, Gemma
106, Cathy
207, Amanda
108, Pat
109, Sally
C1/210, Doris
C3/211, Karen
320, Frgy
322, Helen
323, Irene
325, Jill
328, Nina


I suspect it might have been pod 323.

Ian

[cornish-stormrider]

DunIan, Yellow card Sir. Spotter warning. gratuitous pics yes, list of tail numbers no. And for those of the stinking growbag wearig master race it even includes lists form logbooks of "wot I dun Flowed"

Photos ( espsecially LL, nose art, comical are all highly welcome) and if someone can post a shot of waterspouts caused by high power ground runs up the tubes I would appreciate.

That and a screenshot of Tiald laseing for a paveway! Fnarr Fnarr

[angelorange]

Buccaneer to the Rescue
by Andries Marais.


The armourer Flight Sergeant didn't like it one bit 'Captain, our orders were to load your aircraft with 72 standard HE rockets. I cannot change that on your request!'
He was quite correct of course. The type of weapon used in an air attack is determined after careful target analysis, and we were going to give close air support to our armoured fighting teams mopping up the Swapo camp at Chetequera. It had been decided by Strike Command that 68 mm high explosive rockets were the ideal medicine.
As it was, we had recently returned from a similar sortie over Cassinga, after helping the Parabats with some heavy machine-gun positions which had been troubling them following their silken let-down into that little town which had suffered a surprise attack at sunrise by some Canberras with anti-personnel bombs, and seven Buccaneers, each off-loading eight thousand-pounders.

I could not explain the reason for this highly irregular request, but repeated it nevertheless:'I want every third rocket to have an armour-piercing head, and that is final! And please hurry up; we must be airborne in fifteen minutes'.

Navigator Ernie Harvey looked even more perplexed when we ascended the ladder and lowered ourselves into the Bucc's large but cluttered cockpit. He was, however, soon too busy setting up the Nav. Computer to say anything. Those moments prior to start-up for a strike mission are very tense, very personal, and can only be appreciated by one who has lived them. More so for the Navigator/Weapons System Operator who has no control over the aircraft in any way, and is completely at the mercy of his pilot.
After the engines have been started, nerves loosen up, as the task at hand requires the crew's total attention, and soon we were crossing the border into Angola at something under the speed of sound, on track and on time for Chetequera.
Ernie was just about to check in with Tactical Headquarters at Ondangwa when things started going mad on the Ops frequency.

Dick Warneke, having relieved us at close air support, reported an armoured convoy consisting of tanks and BTR 152 personnel carriers was approaching Cassinga from the south...

We heard two Mirages being scrambled, and the flight leader reporting that they had no rockets, only 30 mm cannon, but with no armour-piercing rounds to stop the tanks, I again made a decision against all planning, and understandably drew some comment from my navigator who had the very difficult task of keeping us on track to our planned target over the featureless Southern Angola countryside. 'Do you still have the Cassinga maps with you?' I enquired, Ernie said 'No', but, bless him, he had not cleared the target co-ordinates from the navigation computer which, incidentally, was the only one installed in our squadron at that time.
The next moment I had track and distance (and time to go) on my Horizontal Situation Indicator, and not being able to get a word in on the, by now, completely cluttered frequency, I took up the indicated heading and felt the thrust of power from the two Rolls Royce Speys, as I opened the throttles.
We were ten minutes from Cassinga when I was for the first time able to break in over the radio chatter and ask permission to terminate our flight to Chetequera and attack the tanks, mentioning that we were carrying armour-piercing rockets. Major Gert Havenga, who manned the Ops frequency at Tactical HQ, also a Buccaneer pilot and never afraid of assuming responsibility, did not hesitate. You are cleared, and I will back you up'. What a man!

Surprise and Concentration of Force are key principles of any assault action, and by the grace of God we again achieved them that Sabbath of 4 May 1978. As I rolled into my dive attack on the tanks which had by now reached the outskirts of Cassinga, in front of me, just settling into their attack, were the two Mirages. The 30 mm HE rounds of the first one exploded ineffectively on the lead tank and I called out to the second aircraft to leave the tanks alone and go for the personnel carriers. The pilot confirmed my request and the next moment I was overjoyed with pride as I witnessed my closest friend, Major Johan Radloff, whose voice I had immediately recognised take out three BTRs with a single burst from his twin cannon .

Ernie gave me a selection of 12 rockets which also flew true, and then we had to break off violently to avoid flying through the debris from the exploding tank.
Turning round for another pass, we could see the first tank burning like a furnace, and on this run, the lead Mirage pilot destroyed no fewer than five BTR's with a long burst, running his shells in movie-like fashion through them. 'Dis hoe die boere skiet, julle .... sems!' were my thoughts and then our second salvo of 12 rockets, every third one with an armour piercing head, also struck home.
In a matter of seconds, two tanks and about 16 armoured personnel carriers had been completely destroyed, and then the Mirages were down to their minimum combat fuel and they had to retire leaving us to deal with the rest.
We decided to concentrate on the tanks, and then things started happening. Most of the BTRs were trailing twin-barrelled 14.5 mm anti-aircraft guns, and some of them were now deployed and shooting at us. Even one of the tanks was firing with its main weapon and I remember being amused at the gunner's optimism at hitting a manoeuvring target travelling at 600 knots.
Ernie on the other hand was far from amused as he was not, like me, in a state of aggression and experiencing tunnel vision. Keeping a good look out all around, he was actually aware of several AA positions firing at us. He was even less impressed at my dismissal of the problem, but my whole system was now charged to take out the remaining tanks.

As we turned in again, these two tanks left the road and disappeared into the bush. We destroyed another BTR, but decided to save our ammunition for the tanks. Flying around trying to locate them, I became annoyed with one AA site which kept up a steady stream of tracer in our direction and decided to take it out. It was, in fact, the gun which had been towed by the BTR we had Just destroyed, and to this day I can only have respect for the discipline and courage of the gun crew and some troops who kept up their firing - even with their small arms - until my rockets exploded amongst them, killing the lot and destroying the gun.
As I broke off from this attack, the huge gaggle of helicopters passed underneath us and landed in the pre-planned area to pick up the troops. By this time I had learned that the Chief of the Army, Lieut-General Viljoen, was on the ground with them, and that there was grave concern for his safety.
Then, as the helicopters were landing, the remaining two tanks reappeared on the road and started shelling the landing area which was in a shallow depression. Because of this, and the inability of that particular type of tank's inability to lower its gun far enough, they were fortunately over tank, and calculating that we had 12 rockets left, I asked Ernie to give me only six, leaving another salvo for the other tank.
Timing was critical as the tanks were beginning to find their range. I realised that they HAD to be stopped. It was a textbook, low angle attack, and the 'Buc' was as steady as a rock in the dive. It was like lining up on a trophy kudu bull after a perfect stalk, but when I pulled the trigger, nothing happened - no rockets, not even one.

I jerked the aircraft around, almost in agony, cursing Ernie for having selected the wrong switches. He was quite adamant that he had selected the switches correctly, and then we went in for another attack, but with the same heart-stopping result.

Without really thinking it out, I opened the throttles wide and kept the aircraft in the dive, levelling off at the last moment, and flying over the tank very low and doing nearly Mach One.
Turning, we went in again from the front, this time doing the same thing with the tank once more shooting at us. I assumed that the crew would have no idea that we were out of ammunition, and hoping to intimidate them, we continued to make fast, head-on low level mock attacks. The Buccaneer from close up is an intimidating aircraft. Flying low, it makes a terrific amount of noise compressed into a single instant as a shock wave, and if this had an amplified resonance inside the tank, the crew would have to be well-trained to stay with it, were my thoughts!

Again I can only praise God, for I remember distinctly having felt during those minutes which followed, being an instrument in His hands; myself a perfect part of the aircraft, and He the Pilot. As it was, the tank crews were eventually sufficiently intimidated to once again seek cover in the heavy bush, enabling the helicopters to load their precious cargo and get away safely.

After returning to base at Grootfontein, 17 hits were counted on their Buccaneer, including a 67mm hit through one of the wings, a 37 mm AA hit through the Port flap, there were 14.5mm hits through both engines although not one were fatal and finally a 14.5 hit right in the middle of the windscreen.
This as I am sure you will agree, not only commands respect for the incredible strength off the windshield but equally, respect for the entire aircraft aswell.

Andries Marais was awarded the Honoris Crux medal for an action of bravery while his life was in danger.
Navigator Ernie Harvey received the Chief of the Defence Force's Commendation medal for his truly commendable actions.