Anybody Actually been Intercepted?

[FlyingKiwi_73]

Hi chaps the Olympic airspace thread started a question in my head.

How and with what would they intercept you in the UK? has this happened to anybody - anywhere.

I once flew in a mates SR20 to Dueaville (Denham Via Lydd) whilst bimblimg along the French coast we got a very sharp course alteration by a very pissed off French controller apparently we were about to bust restricted airspace above a power plant, (not sure if its nuclear) this i might add was not on the Avydyne !!!

Upon landing at deauville we had a chat about this with a two brit pilots on the apron and they we not surprised about this and asked if we had the CAA Saftey leaflet for interceptions? (incidentally has a French mirage on the cover) we'd never seen it! He produced said leaflet from flight bag and sad it was mandatory to carry it???

1000's of questions around this, how they proposed to intercept a plane at 140 kts, would they use force.... etc...

there must be some military pilots out there that trained for this... let us know!!

<luckily now i live in NZ this of course will not apply>

[jackdhc1]

Hi,
What I know of this is that Schedule 9 of the ANO states that 'signals for use in the event of interception' from the UK AIP ENR 1.12 MUST be carried on all international flights.
Hope this helps
Jack

[Ryan5252]

I believe it is mandatory to carry a copy of Interception procedures relating to the national airspace in which one flies. The CAA Safety Sense leaflet you mentioned if it contains interception procedures then I imagine satisfies this requirement - however, it is the content of the safety sense leaflet that is the legal bit not the safety sense leaflet itself.

As far as interception procedures go it is fairly straightforward (AFAIK), an escort aircraft (Mil jet) will fly along side he will 'waggle' his wings to indicate you have been intercepted and you 'waggle' back to acknowledge. If a frequency can be communicated to you (via ATC for example) you are required to change over and follow instructions, if no RT contact the escort aircraft will signal you; "waggle wings = follow me", "Low approach = Land here", its a matter of refering to your interception guide which of course you are carrying :ok:

At least thats my understanding of the whole affair anyway. Not something I have given much thought to though and I must admit I'm not sure if I carry interception procedures, it may be in the back of some book in the flight bag. I don't worry as I am normally with ATC when flying recieving at least a basic service and squawking something or other so I hope they'd give me a bell on the radio first.

Interesting topic!
Ryan

[jackdhc1]

also if a GA aircraft (cessna or the like) is intercepted, the aircraft must fly a racetrack pattern around said intercepted aircraft...
Jack

[ninja-lewis]

IIRC a Tornado managed to guide a King Air across Scotland after latter lost instruments in poor weather. On another occasion a Tucano was sent up to help a Cessna pilot who went blind in the air to safely land at Leeming.

When a F3 and Typhoon flew formation with a Spitfire at last year's Leuchars airshow, they were both flying fairly steep angles of attack to keep up (down?) with the Spitfire.

[IO540]

the aircraft must fly a racetrack pattern around said intercepted aircraft...

It might not have a choice; I gather the Vref for a loaded F16 is about 150kt :)

a Tornado managed to guide a King Air across Scotland after latter lost instruments in poor weather.

A good jolly for the RAF I am sure ;)

[mad_jock]

I have been intercepted a few times for training purposes.

Slightly different I know from them appearing suddenly.

Once in the tommy we got intercepted twice by harriers because after the first one they did a fly pass and I had told my trial flight that if she flashed her boobs at them they would do it again. She did and they did.

[Sir Niall Dementia]

In the dim and distant past if you wrote "embellish" in the remarks section of you flight plan you could guarantee a pair of Lightnings or Phantoms off your wing tip.

Embellish meant you were happy for the RAF to practise their interception techniques on you. My grandfather, an ex fighter pilot would always do it, he and I would be bimbling around in his Rapide and he would tell me that some mates of his wanted to come and wave at me.

SND

[SNS3Guppy]

Right after 09/11 I did a flight to Washington, DC, and turned around back to the west coast Nobody was on the radio; the skies were mostly empty. We were contacted three times on the way out and advised we were being intercepted.

On the way west, some clown took off in a light airplane and got intercepted and escorted down. I can't possibly imagine he was the only person in the country who wasn't aware of what was going on, so the only explanation can either be wanton disregard, or raging stupidity.

[Unusual Attitude]

I know a man who got intercepted by a Hawk after not reading his Notams, I wont name any names however as he's about to start his IR and will be job hunting later this year ! :}

[BEagle]

She did and they did...

Clearly not a certain lady, eh M-J?

I've only been intercepted when flying military aeroplanes:

1. In a Vulcan by Italian F-104s whilst doing some maritime radar reconaissance. Our navigator had decided on a route which tracked towards Italy from the direction of Libya...:hmm:. But he always was pretty clueless. I was on conference intercom with the radar navigator as an F-104 went past well supersonic, so asked WIHIH of the captain - who'd thought they were Libyan Floggers...:\ The Italian GCI controller said "My boys tried a-very hard to catcha you - they saya you looka very nice".

2. In a VC10K by Portuguese A-7s in international airspace. We'd been doing some AAR for a classified purpose and were returning back to Brize without the benefit of any flightplan. "I don't know how to tell you this, oh captain my captain, but we've just been intercepted by a couple of bombers", I told the USAF exchange officer captain. But we made him another medal for the trip.

3. In a VC10 by Spanish F-18s for training purposes near the Canaries.

RMK/EMBELLISH was always on any flight plan I wrote!

[Genghis the Engineer]

One guesses that the Harrier pilots were male then!

A friend flying a SHAR a few years back (when we still had SHARs) did a practice intercept on a passing ATP, mostly I think because he was thinking of applying for a job with the airline. They filed an airprox against him, which caused all sorts of annoying fuss.

A research aircraft I work with has had a practice embellishment by a couple of Tornados, by prior agreement.

Never had the pleasure myself, and hope to keep it that way.

G

[Sir George Cayley]

I hope none of our 'colleagues' get into a position during the Olympics that requires interception.

I fear somebody will.

Sir George Cayley

[martinprice]

Somewhat US-specific but a friend is an F-16 pilot and he gave us an excellent presentation a few months ago on intercept procedures as seen from his side. The key takeaway was that their mission is to identify you and determine your level of cooperation. I got the impression the cooperation bit was quite important. :E

Practically that means you should talk to somebody (anybody) - the interceptors on 121.5, or ATC or even a nearby tower - squawk 7700 and continue to operate the aircraft safely. So long as you do that you're unlikely to experience the use of force although you'll still need a change of underwear and (probably) a lawyer.

[codemonkey]

and what does it mean if they do this?

http://www.crazyaviation.com/images/Top_Gun_in_Hollywood.jpg

[gingernut]

My passenger once asked for a closer look at an open prison, where his dad was once "stationed." Was soon asked to confirm my heading:ooh:

[Geehovah]

Yes, thousands of times and I've intercepted many aircraft too.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v221/DeeGee/Aircraft/May.jpg

The main thing is, don't fly a prfile that will make the operations controller look twice at your track. Bumbling around UK airspace won't cause alarm bells to ring. Fly out into the North Sea at low level and pop up without a squawk and you may find you attract attention.

If intercepted, do as you're told (interception procedures are posted). Nowadays things are more tense than they used to be. If you're in the wrong, make sure you have your cheque book handy if you strayed into restricted airspace. QRA fighters don't come cheap.

BTW, the F16 had his UC down for stability. In an F4 everything had to be dangling to give even a fighting chance of a slow flypast on a single prop light aircraft; gear flaps and a serious weave would nearly do it!.

[mad_jock]

It wasn't the pink one.

And yes they were male and it was a perfect double take as they came by trying to look cool with thier visors down.

[IO540]

I am sure the Olympic 2012 stuff will use armed military helicopters, mostly.

The majority of piston GA flies too slowly for a jet to intercept formally (except to shoot it down at a distance and it would be a massive own-goal to shoot down a non-terrorist target).

I also don't get the ban on solo x/c flights. Sure the students sometimes get lost, but PPLs also get lost frequently. And you can't shoot down somebody who is just lost.

[mary meagher]

Not exactly intercepted, but once on my way to Westbury, over the White Horse, in a K18 glider on a 300 k attempt from Booker, getting uncomfortably low, I didn't want to leave the thermal before getting to cloudbase....

Boscombe Down? down there someplace.....peering at my map...

When a couple of military aircraft, one above and one below, sandwiched my glider.

It don't half get your attention. I think they must have been playing games, but I did promptly skedaddle back out of their territory....

[smitn05]

FlyingKiwi

After a similar incident to yours, with a temporary restricted zone over a nuclear powerplant in France some years ago (soon after they had implemented them), where we had infringed the space by 1/2mile laterally and 200' vertically, we were told by the French military on arrival at our next fuel stop, that they would have sent the Mirages up to intercept us had it not been a Sunday !!!!

It was about lunchtime too as I recall :-)

[FlyingKiwi_73]

Thanks All, Some good stories here, seems more common than not!

ok,... i do admit the 8year old in me really would have liked the mirages to turn up... the 30-ish year old who would have paid for it did not.
Thank fully for us it was a Sunday too!

I did get the distinct impression from the controller we would have been intercepted, i cannot remember her exact words, but she was nay very happy.
We also got vectored to deauville (after telling her our intentions and life story, where why what how long, POB etc...) which led us to believe there was going to be a van full off French gendarme waiting for us, luckily not!

I'd call it a GPS fail, it was not in the avydyne but i think it was on the French sectionals back at Denham.... :(

I got sandwitched by two Chinnoks, out of Odiham i was in the circuit at Lasham in a K-13 and one went above me, then the other bum tinglingly close underneath. very hard to spot against the pines there, the though of the twin rotors kept me awak at night.:sad: