PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - US and RAF pilots 'had mid-air row' over Norfolk
Old 6th Aug 2014, 10:47
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Wensleydale
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
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Back in the 1990s, the bugbear of policing the Balkans No-Fly Zone was whenever a new USN Carrier Battle Group arrived in Theatre. On one occasion, the new CBG decided to have their own exercise in the Adriatic during the day before they officially joined in. The result was many aircraft infringing the operation's tanker tow lines and even an EW serial when they jammed live IFF over the no-fly zone. The fun started when they joined next day - using USN procedures rather than those published in the optasks/opgens etc. (again many busts of sensitive and active airspace).


The last straw was when the ships entered the operational data link net and instantly changed the identity of everything in the recognised air picture which was not USN to Unknown Assumed Hostile - including all of the allied aircraft within the NFZ and those in transit including transports, tankers etc. Repeated requests for them to follow the correct ID procedures and which documents to use fell onto deaf ears until my Data Link manager threw them off the L11 net. ( From memory, when asked why, he told them that we didn't want another Iranian Airliner thank you very much). About 5 minutes later, a much more cultured American voice arrived on the coordination net, apologised, and we had no further trouble after we let them back in (well - the odd hiccup for a couple of days after shift changes).
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