Two occasions come to mind.
The first was in 1976 when they started to send pairs round at about 1 hour intervals. We generated and launched all the Q aircraft we had, then started generating more. Then the jets from CY were generated, at the end the jets from WT were being launched to land and turn round at LU to be lauched in turn. 30 minutes after the absolutely last jet that could be generated was launched - the next pair in the stream turned round and went home.
The second would have been about 86/87.
We normally got lots of warning of activity. Either the Norwegians would track them through 30 East or the Int people would give us a heads up and we'd launch and wait. Lots of times they'd be Foxtrots who turned out to being heading for Jan Mayen island or some such and the Q qould burn holes in the sky for a few hours.
But one day, with no Int, and nothing happening, 3 pairs popped into radar cover simultaneously. One pair 200nm north of Polestar heading south, another pair 200nm north of Saxa heading south and the third pair 200nm west of Benbecula heading east.
Q1 was frantically scrambled but by the time he got airborne they'd all finished attack runs at about 100nm and turned for home. He chased down the third pair as it headed north, but never caught them.
They'd obviously headed north outside Norwegian cover, kept radio silence and then gone low level.
Someone had, it seemed, wanted to make a point.....
Then of course there was the LU Q F4 who almost ran out of fuel chasing Bears south of Iceland, cleaned his wings (tanks, mx, pylons) and just made the tanker with just a couple of hundred pounds of usable fuel left, but that's another story.