Back in the late 60’s it was extremely unlikely that any armed (QRA) aircraft would intercept a civil aircraft excepting ‘the unidentified’. One notable quip was a real QRA against an unknown incoming; the ident was broadcast as an MD80, to which the ground reply was ‘how do you know that’ - “ because it’s written on the side of the aircraft” !
There were also some no-notice QRA flights - often unidentified returning ELINT, no dip clearance etc. More often these were terminated as ‘we now have identification, rtb’, or rarely after ident (coded broadcast), the type was not to be disclosed.
Last edited by safetypee; 3rd Nov 2019 at 16:54.