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Old 13th Sep 2010, 17:57
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NorthSouth
 
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Sometimes north, sometimes south
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El Grifo:
The buzz, albiet predictable in Lauder at the time was exactly that. Thirlestane was the dummy target. This was roundly denied by the authorities
But was in fact exactly right. Thirlestane Castle was indeed the target, despite the fact that it was not on the list of authorised dive/toss targets.

The pilot of Deuce 31 was on a Flight Lead Upgrade sortie. Deuce 32's pilot was the observing instructor. The pair did a single first run attack at Wainfleet Range, then two toss attacks with practice bombs at Donna Nook using the same profile as the one in which they crashed. They then headed north at medium level and descended to low level off Newcastle.

BOAC: although toss manoeuvres were/are used for nuclear weapons, in this particular case it wasn't a simulated nuclear delivery because it was done using the Pave Tack pod, i.e. simulating a laser-guided bomb. In this case the Pave Tack delivery involved running in at 500ft agl from the IP near Kelso accelerating from 480 to 540 knots, then at about 3.6nm from the target, a 4G pull-up to 20 degrees nose up. Weapon release is supposed to occur at 1000ft agl, then the aircraft is rolled to 110 degrees bank, in this case to the right to egress on a heading of about 030. The apex of the manoeuvre was supposed to be 2700ft agl. As the aircraft's nose comes back down through the horizon the pilot is supposed to relax the bank angle to 90 degrees, then roll out wings level on the egress heading and return to low level. All of this has to be done in VMC. It's clear from the accident report that the cloudbase wasn't high enough to complete the manoeuvre in VMC and it looks like, rather than abandoning the manoeuvre as soon as they entered the cloud, the pilot tried to continue, and evidently got disoriented in cloud. The aircraft hit the ground in a 45 degree nose down and 30 degrees right bank attitude.
NS
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