Phlying hours in the cold war
Averaged out how many hours do you all reckon you were flying each day on 43 Squadron during the 80's?
I was on "the other squadron"; abbos flew about 30 hours a month, more experienced people flew less with a minimum of 180 hours per year to retain CR status.
In general was it a sortie a day?
No. As others have said, sometimes daily, sometimes more, sometimes less but aiming for the right number of hours per month.
Did you ever fly 2-3 sorties in a day - or more?
3 sorties was the usual max, for flight safety reasons. This was normally only achieved in air combat or gunnery flying. As AliQ has said, sometimes you could have more, but would need to be specially authorised.
What was the longest time you actually spent continuously airborne in an F4 - including tanking?
9.5 hours following a couple of Bears around the North Atlantic.
The reason I ask is that reading through what Courtney had written about checklists, start procedures etc - it struck me just how complex the Phantom's systems were - so reactions to faults or failures as well as just the processes to actually fly the thing must have needed to be almost instinctive.
From the OCU onwards, the bold face drills (response to emergencies) was a 100% pass mark in exams (usually done as part of the standardisation and evaluation - STANEVAL - of the squadron).
As a mere civilian - I find these fast jet human factor issues very interesting - and the fact that western air forces aren't just superior because of technology, but time spent in the air by their pilots as well.
I wouldn't say "mere"; I'm a civvy now. It's time spent selecting the right people, time spent training on systems and in the sim as well as in the air.
I'd always assumed there was at least one of you up there in the cold and the dark over Dogger, Fisher or German Bight keeping us safe while we all slept soundly in our beds.
It would have taken an enormous number of a/c to have one in the air all the time. We held a number of armed a/c at 10 minutes readiness 365 days a year to respond.