CS - re the UK- Singapore record.
We called it SAR escort; went West from Changi, then turned round and came back so as to 'allow' the F-4s to pass overhead, as we were down about 2000ft, and they proceeded on their merry way to Tengah. I covered the second pair - our sortie was almost as long as their time from the UK - but at least we had Honkers Stew and a toilet!
Shortly afterwards a Boeing 707 (I think from Singapore Airlines) beat the record as well, but wasn't trumpeted quite as loudly.
Sorry; should have added airborne SAR cover for transiting fast jets over both Indian Ocean was a fairly standard task. The Indian ocean was covered by Shacks from Sharjah and Gan, whilst we took them from roughly mid point Gan to Singapore - the idea being if anything did go wrong any one of us could be on scene relatively quickly. The Singapore - Autralia route was less often covered, and more normally for Royal Flights (on one occasion we covered Prince Charles trip to Darwin - we left Changi 2 hours before he landed there, he passed over us as we were half way, and landed 2 hours after he left. He did at least leave a case of cold beer for us, but unfortunately the Aussies just left the empty bottles!).
Last edited by Shackman; 20th May 2016 at 09:47.
Reason: Added info