Vulcans Over Glasgow

[Sheep fancier]

Sorry, maybe wrong forum, but can anyone out there enlighten me as to why there were high level (trailing) Vulcans over central Glasgow circa 1972-1976, I can't remember the exact dates but all I recall is standing in the back garden watching Vulcan after Vulcan fly over Glasgow in a sou' west to a nor' easterly direction about 5 mins apart, a one-off or was it a regular occurence?
Thanks for any replies.

SF

[FJJP]

There used to be a small unit near Glasgow called 'Glasgow Bombplot'. This was basically a radar unit that could very accurately track an aircraft, and had the equipment to mechanically draw a trace of the ac track over the ground on a large strip of paper.

The bomber crew would call the bombplot and declare lots of info, such as bomb type [different bombs had different freefall characteristics] and a host of other info. The nav radar, using the radar screen and bombing computer, would then carry out the bombing run [the bombing kit was linked to the autopilot] - effectively he 'flew' the whole run. A tone was set off on the r/t and stopped at bomb release.

The bombplot crew then took the trace, applied all sorts of factors, and measured where the bomb would have impacted relative to the target. This was then passed to the crew on the radio by code. To see a stream of aircraft at regular intervals on the same track would suggest either an exercise or a competition, where all crews fly the same route and drop bombs on the same target.

These bombplots were dotted round the country - Lindholme, Devon, London, springs to mind [there were others]...

[Pontius Navigator]

FJTP, quite right but wrong date. Glasgow Bombplot had closed before the end of the '60s. It may have been the one that moved to Gernish in the Outer Herbrides.

The other high level bombplots at Ouston, Haydock and Kenley all closed and moved to Tumby near Coningsby, Lindholme and Dunkeswell.

Ouston had been able to score popup attacks on Newcastle but the presence of the increasingly busy airport and the undulating terrain made it unsuitable as a low level plot.

From time to time one of the plots relocated to Sleep, usuallu for competitions.

So, to answer the question, the bomber stream was probably flying up to the north east of Stornoway before running south with all their ECM on to be monitored by 112 SU at Stornoway.

OTOH it may have been no more than chance as they were on a common long range navigation exercise as part of a Group exercise.

[2port]

Mr Fancier

Has that question been fermenting in your mind for the last 30 years!!

2P

[Sheep fancier]

"Has that question been fermenting in your mind for the last 30 years!!"

Well............Yes! It just seemed such a strange sight seeing a stream of Vulcans at high level over Glasgow?
At the time I thought it was some sort of Navex using the old 'GOW' which was situated on Eaglesham Moor to the south west of Glasgow, indeed military types over Glasgow seem rare these days, last ones of note (except for C-5's/C-17's etc) about 2 years ago were three Hawks heading south - north, couldn't miss them as the outer port one barrel rolled over and around the other 2 directly over Glasgow
:eek:

SF

[FJJP]

Pontius, absolutely right! I do remember bombing Glasgow bombplot with the BS missile between 68 and 69, before we converted to FF. Gernish I also remember, but at the same time as Glasgow. We used glasgow fgor the high level BS profile, and Gernish for the pop-up from LL for the BS FF attack (8K alt I seem to remember).

Probably an accurate guess at a GroupEx en-route to the NTP.

When was the 112SU range built? Don't remember it from BS days...?

[Pontius Navigator]

112 SU was on the go from at least '64. It was a good chance of a kip so you might have missed it. Flog off about 150 miles NE of Stornoway, turn inbound, AEO did things every 10 miles, went overhead and headed home again.

Wish I had a pint of beer for every ECM monitor run we did. All highly hush-hush. So hush-hush that no one asked the Navy or Kipper Fleet about AGIs and the like :)

[vecvechookattack]

Practice bombing runs over Coulport maybe??

[allan907]

As an ex member of ECMSDF (Electronic Countermeasures Servicing and Development Flight) - a flight of the Bomber Command Development Unit - at Finningley in the mid 60s I well remember the reams and reams of print outs received from 112 SU. The trick was that a team of Clerk Statistics would pore over the print outs, confer with the AEOs and techies and then fix, or otherwise, the individual 'can' in the tail of the said aircraft.

One of the great dramas that we had in those days was Red Steer which kept busting the return springs. Every time it went back to industry for a fix they would supply new 'special' springs. They would be fitted, tested, flown and declared OK for the job. An order would then be placed for thousands of the new springs, all aircraft would be retrofitted and then the 'new' springs would keep busting again. Turns out that the trial springs were actually hand made jobs and the production runs were not up to the same spec. Kept us laughing for years that one!

Ooo er, I really get the heebie-jeebies talking about this stuff which was ever so highly classified in those days.

[BEagle]

All those Spadeadam runs we did might have been more worthwhile if any of the ECM kit fitted to the tin triangle had been of any use. By the time I flew the beast, all the ECM kit was years out of date and utterly useless...

As I was to learn a year or so later on the F4, all you needed was a couple of locks to wake up the AEO. He would then turn on their missile magnet and we would then have been able to complete the attack without difficulty. Chaff against Pulse Doppler - forget it. IRDs? Only if the Vulcan crew knew you were coming..........which was unlikely unless the Fighter Controllers told them! And even then, no use against SWIFT-enabled Sidewinders.

[FJJP]

Yeah, I know. But fighter affil was good fun for the drivers. Gave us a chance to throw the mighty beast around a bit. Especially when you did it at high-ish level and gradually crept up. By the time you got to 43K the F4 was having fun keeping up with the turn rate...

[BEagle]

Yup - I thoroughly enjoyed fighter affil as well! One crew I was guesting with went up to FL510 (yes, I know they shouldn't have) and none of the fighters we were playing with had a chance!

Playing with a CF-101 once at CFB Chatham, after he'd 'fired' a nuclear tipped missile and claimed the kill (perhaps unsurprisingly), we then went into a turning fight and soon had the mighty tin triangle tucked into his 6!

It was only when the F-15 came along that we knew we'd had our day....

[Pontius Navigator]

When the X-Band jammer was first fitted it was 'brill' against the Firebar (they said), the one that came out of the Lake in Berlin, but on the wrong freq for the Lightning.

It was arranged that we would do FA against the F4Es which I think were MRCA but primarily muds. This of course well before other later attempts at MRCA.

Quick squirt from F4, roll the mighty V, pull hard, turn, climb and 'relax'. No sweat.

Unfortunately, unlike the Lightning the F4 carried fuel, bags of it.

After 2 or 3 orbits we lost him. Grins all round. Just then we heard "FOX 1" . He said afterwards they got fed up in the turning fight, bugged out to 20 miles and returned, burners in, supersonic, and splashed us before we even knew they were there.

[BEagle]

In which case it was a fraudulent Fox 1!! If you were orbitting as described, there's no way that an attack from 20 mile away would have been successful...

All you needed to do was to beam him........

[Gainesy]

All you needed to do was to beam him........

Once used that term in Flight International. Cue mailbag of letters from loonies about Death Rays, Tractor Beams, UFO technology, Area 51, chem trails...there are some truly weird folk out there.

One of the letters was on House of Lords stationary.:hmm:

[BEagle]

Oops - I must have breached the OSA!

Didn't mean to let on about the doom beam.....

Getting the thing up to firing wattage took a while and consumed a fair number of dilithium crystals, but once we'd captured the fighters in the acquisition gate, giving them a photonic bolt from the doom beam was but a trigger press away......

[ACW418]

My goodness you had some advanced stuff in the 70's! In the 60's the threat was different and the mighty tin triangle had a better chance.

ACW

[KENNYR]

Beagle, I think that you have been smoking the dilithium crystals!!! Still, its fun listening to you "old sweats" recount the days of daring-do.:D :ok: And that goes for you, FJJP, as well. :p

[BEagle]

I have never smoked anything! That's for idiots!

Good job that I didn't mention the Vulcan's improbability drive.....

[Pontius Navigator]

Beagle, of course the fighter jocks lie. The only way to prove the missile would have worked was to fire it, like the F4-Jag Fox 2.

Quite agree going beam on would have worked. Also I didn't say he went Fox 1 at 20 miles. He WENT to 20 miles and then ran in calling Fox 1.

We did not know he was even coming back so we were just in a standard orbit.