Originally Posted by
MMHendrie1
I heard one of the ‘Diamond 9’ was ZD848 (BC). She would have been 34-years old.
That had me dusting off my logbook to reveal 41 sorties between Aug 85 and Aug 88 which read like a history of RAFG operations at the height of the Cold War:
SSPs (remember them?); laydown and dive at Nordhorn, Vliehors and Siegenburg; ‘bounce’ sorties on the North German plain; multiple low-level attack formations; MALLET BLOW; air combat training (including one memorable sortie when the SPILS failed and the aircraft departed; we were within a second or two of ejection); WPC at Capo de Frasca; ACMI at Deci; dissimilar air combat (2 + 1 v 3); OLF at Goose Bay; and the highlight, RED FLAG.
Some amazing memories.
I had to google SPILS - that must've been interesting! How low were you when you managed to recover it? Is 41 sorties in 3 years a fairly typical amount of flying? Seems like it would be hard to maintain currency with that amount of flying?
Dad was a Tornado test pilot - he was killed in June 1979 flying a prototype when I was a little boy. A thread to remember all those who gave their lives to Tornado would be a good thing to my mind.
EDIT: Someone pointed out that the gentleman was referring to 41 sorties on a particular airframe rather than type. I know air forces around the world are struggling to pay to keep pilots training sufficiently but I figured things can't have been that bad in the 80s. I need more sleep - and perhaps some reading lessons :-]