Blacked Runway at Waddington?

[Black Shadow]

Does anyone have any evidence to support the rumour that a Tonka blacked the runway at Waddington last night with a wheels-up landing?

[SirToppamHat]

'Scuse my ignorance, but what's a Tonka?

[privatejoker]

for tonka read tornado. i think an f3 did a belly up at leuchars today.

it was at leuchars today:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3292551.stm

[hairyclameater]

Spotter network has indeed reported Waddo closed for 3 hours or so. A Marham mud mover "left" his practice bomb whilst performing an overshoot.

Left a hole in the 03 end and large amounts of metal debris spread liberally up the runway.

A NATO flight (E3 or 707) had to divert to Kinloss much to their annoyance!

[insty66]

There was no wheels up landing at Waddo and definatley no accidental use of practice bombs as runway denial ordinance.

[Tilt&Gain]

I heard a rumour that the guy concerned performed the 'can we do a roller on a pair of CBLS?' trial. Any denials?

[soddim]

Did 50ft skip bombing in Hunters but scraping them off is going a bit far! Must have been a foul.

[Wholigan]

Definitely a "hit on the fly" soddim! ;)


Aaaaaah - those were the days!!!

[The Swinging Monkey]

Hairyclameater is absolutely correct.
It was a GR4, it was fm Marham and it DID leave a practice somthingorother on the runway.
Waddo was Black and yes, the E-3 DID go to Leuchars for a night out - happy boys!!!

Well done to the Marham crew - whatever happened to ...................down - three greens to em, overshoot, scrape, land oh $hit!!!........??

Kind regards
The Swinging Monkey

[insty66]

I'm just glad they got away with it, think on if the cbls hit the floor, how close were the tanks to the floor? and what damage could a sudden side gust have done?
They're alive and have served to remind everyone "Don't assume cliche!"

[DaveyBoy]

I can't say that the three gloomy FC's I discovered in the Scruffs' at about 1am that night looked like they were having a fantastic "Night Out" in the Highlands... ;)

[newswatcher]

Excuse my naivety in asking but, subject to it being a security issue, why was it necessary for the E-3 to divert so far North?

[BEagle]

Well I would probably imagine that it was either that or divert to an expensive civil aerodrome since the only other RAF base between Waddo and Leuchars likely to be open probably wouldn't have the Crash Cat to support an E-3.

Why not Brize? It's called Gateway House:yuk:

[Yeller_Gait]

And the weather that evening at Brize was good enough to use as a div ???

[opso]

The Gp Capt rumour mill concerning the Tonka incident at Waddo is that having made a mess of Waddo's runway, the crew elected to continue the sortie to home rather than land anywhere nearer; when told by ATC about the significant sparking as they 'rolled' and the fact that the runway was now littered with their ordinance, they replied with a simply 'Roger' and continued on their merry way; and finally, when they got back home, they didn't bother to debrief it with the engineers. Finally, the best bit of the rumour has that they are QWIs! Or should that be 'were'?

[newswatcher]

Thanks Beagle, in my "ignorance", I had imagined somewhere like Cottesmore, Coningsby or Marham might have provided a closer alternative. I think they all have runways in excess of 9k feet. Guess you'll know whether they are currently operational!