Military exercise operation photoflash

[paulilf]

This is my second post on the forum and I will say from the start that I am not from any sort of aviation back ground. My reason for putting out this question is because a book has recently been published called the [The Berwyn Mountains Incident: Revealed] I have read lots on the internet about this book and have to say most of it has been adverse to the events suggested.
The key parts holding the story together centre around a military exercise that was alleged to have taken place on 23rd January 1974 around the Liverpool bay area and the north wales coast line. The book uses an an official looking MCA letter as proof. The letter states that an operation called photoflash took place on the night in question and goes on the say that at least 10 aircraft would be taking part and that there could be up to 80 flashes around the north wales coast line.
I would be interested to know if anyone reading this has any memories of this alleged event.
The book tells a story of ufos been flushed out from beneath the sea by use of photoflash bombs. The ufo side of the story is of little interest to me, however I would be interested to know if the photoflash exercise did take place.
Regards Paul

[Kluseau]

Interesting, if a little left field.

Google is usually your friend, and curiosity led to this exchange of correspondence under Freedom of Information Act from 2011. Not very enlightening, though:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/operation_photoflash

More widely, "Operation Photoflash" seems a rather literal name for an exercise allegedly involving the use of photoflash bombs: which to my admittedly fairly sceptical mind suggests that this probably falls the wrong side of the "myth/reality" line.

[RetiredF4]

I cannot help with information concerning the exercise itself.
As you assume that it was an aviation related matter i can tell, that photoflash cartridges had been used by RF-4 Phantom II aircraft for illuminating the target area during night low level recce missions.

RF-4C_2_zps5b5108c1.jpg Photo by hairoldcut | Photobucket (http://s125.photobucket.com/user/hairoldcut/media/RF-4C_2_zps5b5108c1.jpg.html)

The pic shows the ejector rack (both sides had one) for 26 M112cartridges, another rack with 10 bigger M123 cartridges was available as well. We dropped them only occasionally outside of life firing ranges during major exercises. The area was notamed as the cartridges were pretty bright and blinding.

MACDONNELL DOUGLAS F-4 PHANTOM II: MANUAL FLIGHT 7 - Museu Pedagogico Luso Brasileiro - Google Books (http://books.google.de/books?id=JzjlAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=m123+cartridge++photoflash&source=bl&ots=t4Vo5ap0vH&sig=NQ--4JK5pW695drtJH56ZpBaPxc&hl=de&sa=X&ei=fWgwVJraGInIPI_FgfAJ&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=m123%20cartridge%20%20photoflash&f=false)

Those cartridges have been used with other equipment as well.

[boguing]

When was the letter from the MCA dated? The Maritime and Coastguard Agency didn't exist until 1998. Up until then they were HM Coastguard (but had been a government agency for about ten years).

[Haraka]

photoflash cartridges had been used by RF-4 Phantom II aircraft for illuminating the target area during night low level recce missions.
But, incidentally, not on the RAF Phantom recce fit of course .

[paulilf]

Thank you for the replies so far. The MCA letter was said to have been sent out on the 2nd of April 2000 after a request. It is used in the book as an example and is a key part of the story. But the parts of the letter that would make it traceable are blanked out. I am not sure if I am able to post an image of the letter here. However if anyone wanted to type a few key words into a search engine lots of information regarding this will be available.
From my understanding I believe that a photoflash bomb is designed to explode behind the target area to allow good photographic conditions. How would this have worked with alleged underwater targets. And from what I have read the photoflash bomb would not be suitable for a low level flying exercise as the brilliance of the flash would have been detrimental to vision.
Also can anyone give a clue as to what type of UK plane would have been carrying such a bomb in 1974
The book states that a Harrier jets were also involved in the operation.

[Haraka]

Harriers had no photo flash capability.
Recce Canberras yes, but rarely used.

[Wander00]

ISTR flashing PR Canberra in Stanford Training Area when we were night flying at Watton. Did not do a lot for one's night vision

[paulilf]

Thank you for the quick reply, elimination is always the best way to go and that's harries ticked off the list.

[Tankertrashnav]

Recce Canberras yes, but rarely used.

Saw these on several occasions when doing night exercises on Salisbury Plain in 1966 - the underwater flash bomb idea seems a bit fanciful to me.

[cobalt42]

Harrier had 'Lepus' Flare capability, as did
Phantom FGR2 - 6 Sqn in UK - and Buccaneer.

41 Sqn also did trials with a much modified
Port outer fuel tank - very, very bright 'flash gun'.

Saw flashes in the sky over Wainfleet on many occasions... from Coningsby.

The Role Bay chief at the time - '72-75 - Pa**y Sc***on's garden fence in Sleaford was constructed from (empty) Lepus Flare boxes.

[Tashengurt]

This seems an ideal thread for the spotters forum. Until someone creates a tin foil hat one that is.


Posted from Pprune.org App for Android

[Haraka]

I don't think the Lepus flares were primarily for photoflash on Harrier or 6 Sqn Phantoms (or Buccaneers come to that ).
Indeed we did have the flash/fuel tank on 41 Sqn in '74 ( bit of a worrying combination that :))

Ah yes, "Paddy the Pod".

[paulilf]

"This seems an ideal thread for the spotters forum. Until someone creates a tin foil hat one that is."
I have to agree, the whole idea sounds crazy to me also. But the book is putting this out as fact based. So I thought the best people to ask if any of this could be true would be you guys.

[Old Bricks]

2(AC) Sqn F4s also used the electronic photoflash pods, although they were generally almost useless for producing usable imagery. They had been designed and then rejected by the US - and then bought cheap by the RAF, whilst the USAF continued with photoflash cartridges. Main disadvantages were that the light output of the electronic flash was small, so ac had to fly very low to allow the light to reach the ground - not popular at night. Repetitive light flashes also tended to give AAA a good pointer towards a good target. Photoflash cartridges went off behind the image-taking ac, from a reasonable height, and thus also gave nice clear images with shadows to help analysis - Electronic flash was directly above the point where the camera was synched to open shutter so image was flat, grainy and shadow-free where you wanted to look. Luckily, we had the AAS-18 IRLS in the recce pod, which was superbly tweaked to make up for the deficiencies of the flash. 2 Sqn won Royal Flush Day/Night recce competition at Florennes in 73 (or 74) against USAF F4s who had the photoflash, mainly because of the performance of the IRLS. Both teams were obliged to produce annotated target imagery from the optical flash cameras, although ours depended almost entirely on using the IRLS as the prime.

[Haraka]

Indeed "Old Bricks" , but a final run across the airfield with the flash firing was a good way of getting the PI's out of the T.V. Room and across to the RIC. :)

[Old Bricks]

Haraka
TV room? I didn't realise that Coningsby was in such an unwarlike condition! We at Laarbruch would sit in the slit trenches, gnawing on an unopened tin of Compo through the respirator before fighting our way into the RIC through the invading hordes.......

[paulilf]

Ok guys, well apologies if this seems to be getting even more ridiculous than my first enquiry. This is roughly what the book says about the deployment of the photoflash bombs.
"The exercise was called Photoflash and was to use a device dropped from helicopters. The device is a potassium perchlorate bomb and this was exploded over the ocean to illuminate the area beneath"
It says that up to 80 of these flashes could be expected, I would have thought that such an event would have been quite devastating to marine life.
Would it be possible for helicopters to deploy these?

[Haraka]

We at Laarbruch would sit in the slit trenches, gnawing on an unopened tin of Compo through the respirator before fighting our way into the RIC through the invading hordes...... ...... of ATC cadets?

[Sandy Parts]

"exploded over the ocean to illuminate the area beneath" - wouldn't have thought that would have affected the marine life too much (apart from making them think it was daytime?!). If the flares burnt out - wouldn't even have been much left to hit the oggin. Why the interest?

[paulilf]

The interest stems from a book that has just been published called the “Berwyn Mountains Incident: Revealed” It uses an MCA letter as proof that this event happened. The story goes that operation photoflash took place to flush out ufos from beneath the sea. As I said in a previous post I am not really that interested in the ufo part of the story as I do not think this happened. I am however interested in finding out if operation photoflash took place.
Here is an extract from the MCA letter
"During the late afternoon early evening of 23 January 1974 there was an exercise from the Jerby Range on the Isle of man.
The exercise was called photoflash and coastguards were advised to expect at least ten aircraft taking part and at least 80 flashes anywhere around the Liverpool Bay area and the North wales coastline."
The book also says a Harrier jet was brought down during the incident but I can find no aircraft crashes for that date.
Regards Paul

[FantomZorbin]

this was exploded over the ocean to illuminate the area beneath

It has been known for a RAS to be illuminated thus. Not happy matelots, as the hoses were in operation ... oops! :=

[binbrook]

Haraka - "rarely used" - I wish! We all went to Otterburn, Sennybridge, Stanford, Nordhorn, Sennelager, Catterick, Suippes, and Feldom (wherever that was) far too often, and with very mixed results.

PS Forgot Meppen - wasn't that where the crew had a Decca lane-slip and brought back pictures of a village street?

[TEEEJ]

Paulilf wrote

The book also says a Harrier jet was brought down during the incident but I can find no aircraft crashes for that date.

The Harrier crash in the region was in 1982.

ASN Aircraft accident 12-FEB-1982 Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.3 XZ973 (http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=55557)

Firstly, none of the Berwyn Mountain Incident witnesses were formally interviewed by ufologists until at least twenty years after the event. And secondly there had been at least one other event in the locality which contained all those elements. On 12th February 1982 an RAF Harrier jet carrying top-secret equipment crashed on Cader Berwyn.

Berwyn Incident article (http://www.uk-ufo.org/condign/berwart7.htm)