Originally Posted by
PDR1
The Radio 4 version of this story is even less likely IMHO. They claim that QRA-South was phoned and told to expect an american to drop by, who would relieve the QRA pilots. They then say that the american duly arrived, and shortly afterwards flew a QRA lightning on a mission. The different versions of the story they told then claimed that said Lightning returned with or without some/all of its missiles.
...because of course the USAF had a plentiful supply of current, Lightning-qualified pilots and trhe RAF routinely handed over aircraft and stood-down QRA to foreign officers on the basis of a single phone call. Happens every day...
PDR
Well.............on the subject of American pilots and the Lightning and daft conspiracy theories.....
I've always been surprised that the fantasy theorists have never tried to make a connection with this story and the incident the following year involving USAF exchange officer Lt.Schaffner who was killed when the Lightning F.6 he was flying crashed into the sea in mysterious circumstances, involving claims of UFO intercepts and the like...on the basis that Schaffner must have been the USAF QRA Lightning pilot that came back with a missing missile in this story and thus had to been later eliminated by the US Govt to cover this deed up, hence the mysterious circumstances of Sept 1970....
Surprised Hollywood haven't turned it into a film yet
