Now returning to the real topic.
Two years after the French bounced us we had a second chance.
This time, on Exercise Coop, our mission was to execute a simulated laydown attack on Juvincourt, an airfield in northern France. At this time we were still equipped with Yellow Sun so did not practice true laydown attacks.
We transitted at high level to southern Germany and entered French airspace, IFF at standby, in the region of Karlsruhr and flew over France at 500 ft 250 kts for the 200 miles to the target. All the way we had our eyes peeled for Franch fighters.
Of course the French air defence did not have our flight plans or targets (oh yeah). Anyway, as we got to the IP, 20 miles south of the target, and turned north we were bounced by a Vatour. Now of course in the ordinary course of events this was no contest. But
We were not allowed to drop chaff nor had we any X-band jammer. What the skipper did though was opened the throttles wide and we were soon accelerating through 400 kts. Unusually for the 60s we then strappe din and donned bonedomes. My head kept bouncing off the radar camera head rest and our plotter Dave F***N (no vowels) who did not have the most stanle stomach kept his head down.
The height carriage on the Calc 5 was bouncing and the H2S ranger marker was bouncing in sympathy. As we swept over the target, with the Vatour still trying to get a guns shot, our TAS was 415 kts.
A year or so later, once the laydown trials and low level trials were complete, the RTS limited the maximum speed to 375 kts with a once only wartime dash at 415 kts. But we had been there so that was one little tick in our personal survival kit.
