12 Jul scrambled at 1645 - 5-15 D 0.30 N no trade
13 Jul scrambled at 1445 - 6-35 D no trade
15 Jul a/b 0640 10-45 D no trade.
My log book records the same Shackleton sorties......all with Beery Weir as Captain. If I may cross threads, the aircraft for 13 Jul was WR963 - the subject of civilian registration at Coventry.
As for "Scramble", we frequently held a nominal 2 hours state at home which frequently led to scramble rather than escalating through the other states. My record was airborne from home in 35 minutes, which is not bad when you consider:
a. I lived 17 miles away
b. In those days we were not allowed to travel home to station while wearing flying kit - even when holding QRA. The result was that those of us who lived a fair distance away would arrange for flying kit in a bag to be taken to the aircraft, and we would change into goon suits etc on the aircraft - frequently on the taxi out. This allowed us to sprint from motorbike directly to the line and onto the aircraft. I remember that and one occasion during an exercise, a crew forgot the 2nd Nav/Radio Operator - he fell asleep on the crew coach and was missed in the mele during taxi.
I recall that some exercises such as Priory had the next shackleton crew to be airborne on alert - normally at 30 minutes in the crewroom then scrambled by the SOC as needed. Sadly, if the barrier was in the Neatishead sector, it could take up to 3 hours to reach the area, and the activity had long passed when we arrived. We were frequently overtaken by East Coast trains on long transits with unfavourable head winds.