Originally Posted by
ORAC
RS2 Cockpit Readiness, RS5 dismounted.
Relaxed to RS10 once the era of INAS arrived.
It seems electric jets need even longer to allow time for the OS to boot up….
Incorrect.
Battle Flight at Wildenrath was RS05 on the Phantom FGR2 which had INAS.
I used to observe and time practice scrambles a couple of times a month and would expect the aircrew to be in the aircraft from the hooter within 20 to 30 seconds and the aircraft to be taxying out of the HAS in about 120 seconds.
There were pre-heaters for the INAS and all the aircrew equipment was laid out as shown in this video.
The distance to run to the aircraft from the small Battle Flight aircrew + groundcrew building was a lot less than is the case now from the palatial by comparison accommodation at Coningsby and Lossiemouth.
19 Sqn and 92 Sqn each had a Battle Flight HAS in the 19 Sqn Dispersal. The aircraft only had to taxy down the short spine of the HAS Loop to get to the runway.
On the first NATO TACEVAL of RAF Wildenrath with the Phantom FGR2, we were awarded "1" ['equivalent to "Excellent" today"] in all 4 functional areas: Readiness, Operations, Logistics and Survive-To-Operate [now Force Protection].
As best as I can recall, the fastest hooter to airborne time on the TACEVAL was around 2 minutes 20 seconds and the average around 2 minutes 40 seconds.
The resources and performance of the overall force would have equated to the modern Mission Capability Rating of "Superior Mission Capable" - exceptionally difficult to achieve - due to:
- Recall + weapon system generation in less than 50% of the required time.
- Aircraft Combat Availability of over 100% - in those days you could count all the aircraft held in excess of AE towards the stats rather than notifying the tail numbers to be counted against the Aircraft Established (AE). I had an AE of 10 + 1 IUR + received 1 off Major but also kept the one due to go to Major = 12
- Combat Available (completion of pushback into HAS of a serviceable aircraft) > Combat Ready (completion of OTR with 8 missiles + gun ammo and aircrew assigned) in around 20 minutes.
- Aircrew:Aircraft ratio of 2:1.
- Hardened Combat Ops Centre (COC), Hardened Pilot Briefing Facility (PBF) [now Sqn Ops Facility (SOF)],Hardened Aircraft Shelters (HASs), Hardened Equipment Shelters (HESs) and Hardened Bowser Shelters (HBSs) - none in the UK at that time.
- Massive comms redundancy - 7 ways of communicating with a HAS: KLU, PABX, PAX, Dispersal Tannoy, Telebrief, ground management radio and aircraft radio
- Required days of spares, fuel and emergency rations to hand
- Full NBC IPE worn throughout for all tasks - minus only S6 Respirator when not Air Attack RED.
Video from 10 years after the period described above: