Fg Off Bloggs, thanks for providing such an accurate post!
Were you involved in that OP. FRISTON on 1 Sep 1988? I'm convinced that AOC Maritime had come in with a bit of a headache one morning after too much port or something and had decided "Enough of this Glasnost stuff, time we reminded the Sovs that we're still in business!". After being informed of the whereabouts of a Sverdlov-class, he'd probably burnt up the classified phone lines to Lossie and as a result, the Bucc mates soon found themselves tasked to 'say hello' to said ship.
We were tasked to provide the VC10K support from Brize and met the Buccs just off Scotland, 'haigh-ing'* our way up track for another Bucc crew to join us after they'd jumped into the spare jet.
The simulated attack most definitely caught the Sovs with their pants down; Tony L-W sent us a nice letter afterwards saying that they'd had one fleeting radar sniff at them after they'd wired the cr@p out of the ship and were climbing back towards us for post-attack AAR.
One of my most memorable AAR trips - good to have worked with such a fine team from Lossie. We did 6:40 in a K2 and made it back to Brize on absolute minimum fuel after climbing to FL420, thanks to the skills of the sqn's most ancient, but best navigator.
And yes, even my attempts at medium toss at Wainfleet whilst struggling as a 237 OCU student were achieving results inside 300ft. Topping the student bombing ladder didn't stop me being chopped off the Bucc though...
*'haigh-ing' means to meander along track with a variety of heading changes making good the MLA, but rarely on the planned track. Named after a 101 Sqn navigator, Flt Cdr and thoroughly nice chap whose navigational techniques were......different. Also known rather irreverently as 'Admiral Zig Zag' after his time on exchange at BRNC Dartmouth