On a Certain Tanker Type, we held so-called 3 hrs from home. But that actually meant 61 min, because to hold a formal 60 min would be rather demanding of infrastructure, with some form of 'Q shed' accommodation needed.
It was certainly expected that we would be airborne asap if scrambled from bed at home. Called at 0-dark-00, throw on kit, 15 min drive to the aerodrome, then through the station and over to southside to climb in. Meanwhile the groundcrew would have the power set running etc. Start, taxy, airborne in about 40 min from deep sleep....
The best I recall is 7 minutes from scramble in the crew room, onto the bus to drive to 'RUST' where the jet was parked. Air Eng started the engines and powered everything up as everyone else strapped in. As usual though, the biggest delay was waiting for the INS....
Great days!
We also used the '20 min rule' - if you were reverted to a lower readiness state, it was prudent to wait in case someone at the ADOC changed their mind. This happened on one occasion; the crew was at 15 min sitting in the jet and asked for a Sitrep update. Ops queried the ADOC, who replied "OK, let them go!" - which Ops took to mean stand the crew down. Whereas actually the ADOC had meant them to launch! On another occasion we'd been called out - the navigator lived in Cirencester. By the time everyone was in, we were reverted to 3 hrs, so the navigator drove home without waiting. Just as he got home, his pager went off; he answered the phone to be told we'd been scrambed from 3 hrs. Back into his car and back to Brize only to see us taking off - we'd found another nav!
In the early days, if scrambled it was very necessary to get to the jet asap to avoid having your trip pinched by the Boss!
The standard from Brize was to turn at 500ft direct for Wallasey, climbing to about FL310, then pedal to the metal towards the play area. Some interpretation of 500ft was a bit liberal and after the late G**g M**K****n had, with the help of a strong easterly wind, managed to turn between Stn Ops and where the C-17s now live, we'd had a bit of a finger wagging from on high
. Shortly afterwards, in the early hours of a hot, humid and airless summer morning we were scrambled with the Boss flying. The wind was
just within limits for a downwind take-off on RW08(Short), so off we thundered at full power. Rather than climb at V2+20, he accelerated straight to min flap retract speed, then remembering the edict, waited until 500 ft before he turned...... (High ISA dev, tailwind, diurnal effect, shallow climb angle...
) As a result, we roared over west Witney at rather low level, waking up most of Thorney Leys and the Windrush Valley Estate - a mate who lived in Thorney Leys later said that the 'sound of freedom' was quite indescribable! Radio Oxford's switchboard was jammed and the Stn Cdr wasn't best pleased. Strangely enough, no-one mentioned early turns after that....