lions and donkeys
"The greatest disappointment I felt flying in the RAF was that I was flying with lions on aircraft that were procured by donkeys"....
My ex colleague goes on to say.... "You talk about foam being ID'd back in the early '90's, but a whole host of kit that was pretty much standard on aircraft that fought and lost the war in Vietnam should have been on the frames that you and I were flying - FLIR, secure comms, DAS are all givens in today's AORs."
I think this is in essence what you are getting at rudekid. Bar the odd daylight suicide run into Bagram/Kabul all of my flying in Afghanistan was NVG. I still got targetted by MANPAD, so close that the observer heard the missile explode from the bubble. I was targetted several times by small arms fire on approaches to coalition bases. I have to disagree with your point about HEVS. The baseline in all this is DIRCM, foam, BW protection and NVG ops. On one occasion my crew was tasked to take in a Herc loaded with marines. We did not have an NVG frame so we turned off the ac lighting and taped green light sticks all over the instrument panel. I was told that from on high I should not do this but the Commandos were so keen for publicity that every man and his dog must have known we were going to Bagram that night. I was tempted to invite one of the film crews onto the flight deck and show them what it is like to fly on operations in the RAF in 21st century. Sadly, the J is NVG compatible but is used to fly daylight ops in Iraq. Rest assured, the Defence Committee have been advised of this fact. In many ways the J fleet is taking the biggest risks at the moment. It is one reason why I have been vociferously arguing the case for enhanced protection for the J as well as the K.
Last edited by nigegilb; 18th Mar 2006 at 07:37.