Obviously the centreline SU-23 hardware had been maintained for air to air purposes and before deploying south we did a limited strafe work up.
'Limited' indeed! I did a dual trip with the
QWIL but the harmonisation wasn't good - as was confirmed by one of the Flt Cdrs. Next day I went on my one and only ever trip to Donna Nook; we were late off as the previous crew had been late back. Wattisham to DN at 500KIAS+, one dry pass then a couple of hot passes which was all we had time for. The NRL 'Griggles' was in the back reminiscing about his mud-moving days, then we waxed my Flt Cdr on his Tac check having timed our briefed bounce to occur right in the middle of his frequency change from Eastern to Neatishead..
One of my few really enjoyable F-4 trips, made doubly so after I was told I'd scored 52% on the range!