Evening all,
first up, thanks a lot for these seemingly mundane banner towing details. Trust me, it's not to me
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Generic question to all: BBadanov mentioned r/t contact with the Mirages in his post; was this a common procedure in towing and what were typical radio exchanges if so? Were corrections to flight path ever called out from the shooter or was it all down you to and what pattern you were supposed to fly? In air-to-air towing did you try to make things difficult for the shooter?
BBadanov also mentioned a 'blue' hit on the fin - did anyone else ever get more than they bargained for or was this pretty rare?
Spectre150 and Options770 could you elaborate a little on the towing you did for the Navy's guns. What kind of runs would you have to make for them, for instance what altitude and rough distance from the ship, could you see it and the shell explosions or would these have been behind you/out of line of sight?
Options770, that TA shoot sounds interesting, not something I have heard of before - what kind of speed and altitude did you make your runs at? Could you actually see the shooters? I am guessing you would have had to be have been fairly close in for small arms to have even stood a chance...although you say they were off the mark anyway!
Finally, you all probably know I am working on a book about all this; if not, the link to the main book thread is over here:
http://www.pprune.org/aviation-histo...r-request.html
Seeing as I am light for content on towing, I'd love to be able to use your anecdotes with permission of course. If so let me know and I will send over a PM. Cheers.
BBadanov, I think I sent you a PM about your RAAF experiences (not sure, I have sent a fair few out recently). You mentioned B.20s in Vietnam - I would very much like to talk to you about that, but perhaps that is best done in the other thread or PM if you prefer. I probably would have endless questions that might not be appropriate for his exact thread.