Hiding from the fighters..
Well, Courtney, hiding from Lightnings was relatively easy. But when it came to the F-4, we simply didn't know what we were doing. For example, we had no idea of the capability of the AWG12 / AIM7 weapon system. A lot of our so-called tactics might have worked against an Atoll-equipped MiG-17 or a Hunter, but would have been useless against a PD-equipped jet. We thought if we heard the PD lock 'break' on the RWR that we were safe - PD search attacks came as quite a surprise to me in later years. It was only when I had my brief spell on the F-4 that I realised how abysmal had been the general level of our tactical knowledge when flying the Vulcan. We might have known how long the snatch cords for the all-electric bucket of sunshine were, or the threat range of the Fiddler / Ash system, but as pilots we hadn't a clue about the black arts practised by our lower-deck navigation team, let alone the off-boresight capability of the AIM9G or Atoll!
Some old, familiar faces on that excellent website of yours!
I don't know about your experience, but I generally found that the worst rule breakers were 'frustrated fighter pilots' who'd never had the benefit of 4FTS or TWU training. One such (ex Victor) cowboy arrived at Chivenor one (unusually) dank day in Autumn 1980 in his Finningley JP5 with rather a quiet navigator. He then boasted about having flown across at low level. We had flown a few ACM trips, but the weather was pants for LL. "Don't they teach you lot to fly in this?", he bragged. One of our holding navs (later to become an F3 boss) found out from the nav student that the sight of sheep going past at eye-level during one of the letterboxing events of the trip down had scared him fartless......
Last edited by BEagle; 29th Dec 2011 at 14:37.