I really really don't know, Genstabler! Maybe it was because it was rotting in the main spar and had served its time with pride going out with a bang in Gulf War 1 where it took over self-designation of its own LGBs from the Tornado (which had called on the Buccaneer to designate for its LGBs) to allow the latter to take on other duties!
Don't get me wrong, I never said it was a fighter just that it had an air-to-air capability, which it had - a live Sidewinder firing is an exciting experience on Aberporth range but it was definitely not as good fun as the day I fired a MARTEL TV Missile which had a great deal more thrust and a far greater range (actually, thinking about it, during Trial MISTICO 2 in 1976, when we (and 809 Sqn) fired TV MARTELs on Aberporth, the last missile misbehaved, vanished vertically into cloud and just missed the port wing of an RAF F4 that was tasked with trying to gain a missile lock on the missile as part of the trial - so maybe the Buccaneer's air-to-air capability was greater than I gave it credit for!).
Bloggs
PS. How's the research going? Anything else I can help you with?