Another SLF here and long time lurker who just finished sitting still for 3 hours reading this fascinating thread........
I was an armored officer in the Canadian army from 1976-1983 and one of my old friends and fellow zipperhead lieutenants in our regiment was a chap named Bernie Kennedy, who had recently remustered and joined our unit in 1981 as a medical washout from flight training. Seems he ended up getting a really bad chronic sinus problem under pressurization well into his final months of the course.....to bad for him......but I digress.
He was training to be a back seater (WSO) with 416 Cougar squadron in the CF-101 Voodoo.........based out of CFB Chatham in New Brunswick, just a hop, skip and a jump (in jet terms) from Goose Bay, Labrador. Reading this thread jogged my memory regarding a story he once told me were they had just finished a Genie shot at a Vulcan sitting around FL 550, and they were trying to climb back up to altitude after rolling out inverted and running away to avoid the blast that would have occurred with a war shot.........
Seems the Voodoo was a real handful over FL 500, it just didn't like to fly level, if at all when that high, and was not much of a candidate for snap up attacks because of it's well known and documented pitch up problem, and subsequent departure from controlled flight. So they were trying to get back as high as they could and as level as they could without losing it, and maintain their flight attitude for the 45 or so seconds it took the fire control system to cool the Falcon missile seeker heads, and lock on to the target.
Seems the tin triangle as you call it (great name BTW !!) once it knew they had company, would merely either climb higher, and or, bank steeply one way or the other, out turning the Voodoo easily and breaking the lock, with the Voodoo unable to follow the maneuver.
There was nothing they could do but wave, or shake their fists at it, as they always lost their shot........he said the 3 times he flew against them they could never claim a succesful splash. The Americans B-52's were down under 500' all the time, and the Vulcans would also fly low as well, but the trips "up there" to check on your high altitude visits were the only time the Voodoo boys seemed to get any really enoyable AI fun in his words.
Last edited by CariocaCanuck; 23rd Jun 2009 at 17:56.