Some outstanding times and some outstanding people.
48-ship mass launch at the end of TACEVAL, no ATC, Yellow 1 on the North German Plain....thanks Harry! Belgian F-16's at 50ft, F4's capping at the Peheim Mast, 8-ship IMC night TFR at Goose (planned on the CPGS
)......quick, sandbags on the doors, swing the lights.
)
You could park the GR1 with the wings swept, as long as the Fin was empty but as we almost always filled it, you never did sweep them for parking/taxiing.
Jackaroo - I hope I can answer your "1700mph" question adequately. The term "top speed" is largely irrelevant as it all depends upon, amongst many other things, drag. The more you carry outside/hang off the ac, the slower it is. F3's were lucky in that they flew around without fuel tanks or ECM most of the time and whilst this limited their fuel, they could still fly fooooooking quick when they wanted. On the GR1, because we always had tanks and ECM fitted (in a war, we'd be going a
lot further into badlands), we had quite limiting speed limits on the stores we carried. Occasionally you could fly an air test clean and I once tried an 'acceleration test' downwind at the range at Capa Frasca (Deci). 300kts to 600kts in 21 secs, carrying CBLS though so still quite draggy. I was quite impressed with that and she was still pulling like a train at 600. Also saw 590kts in dry power at low level with tanks, ecm & CBLS....forgot to set the autothrottle and got distracted.
Ac with the smaller (subsonic) fuel tanks had a tendency to.....errr.....step sideways when you went a little too quick.
