Originally Posted by
frodo_monkey
Only if you assume the Cranwell flypro of the time is the same as Waddo’s. Even Cranwell is a bit of a ghost town now with Dominies having gone, only 5 Phenom and a smaller EFT setup. Waddo has even less, and what it does have is much more predictable, flies for longer and doesn’t circuit-bash.
Waddington's flypro is governed by tasking of ISTAR assets which are given operating times usually days before they have to be on task (for example, the Sentry is tasked by NATO AEW&C Force Command well in advance). Achieving these times means a set take-off time with the added risk of discovering that the Reds have put in a late airfield blocking time and you are 30 minutes late airborne resulting in a loss of valuable (and expensive) training time with other assets including fighter control serials and Naval surface units. Planning an excessively early take-off is also a waste of valuable (and very expensive) flying hours, to say nothing of added crew rest difficulties with a very early morning start. If I may also add that years ago during Reds bolt-hole, when the Sentry was flying live ops to the Balkans from Waddington in order to police the NFZ, a slip in Reds take-off time resulted in a very late on-task time over the UN No-fly zone!! The Reds need to deconflict from the ISTAR tasking, and not the other way round which happened back then.