Using your own kit against you.

[Bob Viking]

We were having one of those random crewroom conversations the other day (as you do) and the idea of using an airfield Navaid to find and attack an airfield came up. The idea of using an ILS (or even better a GCA!) to then unleash your weapons seemed quite amusing.
So my question is, has there ever been a known occasion when an aircraft has used such a tactic to find and attack a target. Or have the 'enemy' always been smart enough to turn off such devices?
BV:8

[Flying Bull]

Stupid idea, cause navaids lead to the runway, not much harm to do there.
A hole in a runway can be fixed easily.
But I don't like to diskuss, how to be clever.
Enough idiots out there :-(

[West Coast]

In the US there is a natinal plan for shutting down NAVAIDS in times of threat.

[Just This Once...]

In the UK there is a plan for getting some of them serviceable in times of threat.

[Pontius Navigator]

During Suez a Canberra got a QDM from its target.

[Just This Once...]

During the first Iraq war a whole bunch of NAVAIDs were left on, including DME at some of the airfields we were attacking.

On the other hand we were still addressing flight plans to the Iraqi FIR.

War can be a bit odd at times.

[Vzlet]

In the 1980s, I thought it odd that radar corner reflectors next to Ramstein's runway were draped in camouflage netting. Would they have been left in place had the proverbial balloon ascended?

[Easy Street]

Back in the days when they still taught IP-to-target runs on EFT, a generous QFI let me choose my own target for a Midlands navex, so I chose the Daventry VOR. On the 1:50k it just appeared as 'Beacon', and on the LFC there was nothing to give it away (this was also before JTIDS avoids appeared around DMEs). I had no idea what it looked like, but figured I would covertly dial it in as a back-up in case my 'proper' technique failed. Confidence was high approaching the IP as the radial came in and the range started counting down! Passing the IP I saw the enormous circular beacon ahead... surely I must be rumbled, I thought... but either the QFI had no idea what a VOR looked like, or he was humouring me expertly.

Got a '5' for the IP-tgt, happy days! Never understood why my fellow students, given the choice, chose phone boxes and the like... a kill's a kill during flying training!


P.S. Just in case you thought that TACAN was all about holding procedures and OAT routes across Europe, have a read of this: Battle of Lima Site 85 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lima_Site_85) for some real navaid-directed bombing!

[Wrathmonk]

salad-dodger

Bore on, of course it did PN. First hand experience, or just more of the apocryphal tales you seem so full of?

PN may have been referring to this incident (as recounted on page 103 of Roland Beaumont and Arthur Reeds book "English Electric Canberra", (ISBN 0-7110-1343-8, published by Ian Allen Ltd, 1984) should you wish to check....)

"On the night of 31 October, a large force of Canberras and Valiants was airborne and en route for airfield targets, including Cairo West, when the British embassy in Cairo warned that the airfield was at that moment being used by 15 United States transport aircraft to evacuate US citizens. Radio messages via Cyprus to delete Cairo West from the list of targets reached the bomber force just before it entered Eqyptian airspace. The action produced its other legends, including the Canberras on a raid which were given a 'fix' on their airfield target by an Egyptian air traffic controller who assumed he was talking to an inbound airliner."

[Ivan Rogov]

Colin Bell Almaza called us back and said 'Your QDM is 189'

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=9&sqi=2&ved=0CFwQFjAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Frafmuseum-1.titaninternet.co.uk%2Fresearch%2Fdocuments%2FJournal%25201 7A%2520%2520-%2520Air%2520Navigation%2520in%2520the%2520RAF.pdf&ei=CiwxUd7-CpKa1AWB04HwCQ&usg=AFQjCNFFYqenLORXj1DCjZW6W_fk_tgKEA

[L J R]

Folk law has it that the raids on Libya in 1986 used the ATIS to update altitude calibration, and the Runway lights were on at the airfield to allow a slight correction for run-in heading for weapon release.

[salad-dodger]

Looks like I need to apologise. My apologies PN, it looks like you were indeed reciting a genuine event.

S-D

[Not Long Here]

Flying from Seeb pre-hostilities GW1 we had to get DIPCLEAR for the Unhelpful Arab Emirates to transit to the Northern PG and submit a Flight Plan. Had one occasion where we ended up holding at the FIR boundary for about an hour while the Embassy sorted it out.

Their fighter pilots also thought it a jolly jape to lock us up with their radar while we were up in the northern PG :ugh:

[clicker]

Back in the 70's I was a member of the Air Cadets adult staff and attended a navigation course at RAF Finningley,

At the end of the week all 20 of us were taken to the Dominie simulator to check out our DR work.

"Fly to position x, then to go to airfield y" was the instruction given to us. "x" was a lat/long out in the North Sea. All we got was a forecast wind and sent on our way.

I made a silly mistake on the first leg on my timings and while on track OK I turned for the second leg a few minutes early. However the instructors were somewhat puzzled that I hit the airfield spot on. Forgot to tell them I had used the base TACAN. :)

Only did two adult courses with the cadets, the other being on radio and radar at RAF Cosford. Both excellence weeks and the nav course also helped when I went for an interview for an civil airline ops job.

[Danny42C]

West Coast,

Your #3 refers. In Dec '41 the Americans did exactly that. The Radio Range stations in the Eastern states were switched off, although the stated purpose was to prevent their use by German U-boats for navigation - not quite the same thing. Wreaked havoc with their own Civil Aviation, though !

D.

[Dan Winterland]

During the Kosovo war we managed to get a very accurate met report for our receiver's target. It was an airfield and the ATIS was still transmitting! The helpful tranmissions stopped after someone bombed the ATC tower two days later.

[Andu]

During Suez a Canberra got a QDM from its target.Re Pontius Nav's comment about the Canberras asking for a DF in '56: in my youth in the RAAF, we had an ex-RAF Canberra driver who'd transferred to the RAAF who told us he'd been on the squadron involved. It was bar talk, so the tale had possibly grown in the telling, (maybe quite a lot), but I heard the man (whose name I still recall) tell the story myself. The way he told it, approaching the target, (I can't recall whether Egyptian ATC challenged them or they called ATC), but whatever, they asked for DF and were given one, then they dropped their bombs.

As I said, it was bar talk, but bar talk from a man who was there. As I recall it, the way he told it, the poor bloody Egyptian ATC bloke was really happy, even eager, to help.

Possibly destroying the credibility of my source, the same bloke told us an hilarious story about when the RAF was converting both Israeli and Egyptian pilots onto Spitfires in the mid to late '50s - at the same base! They quickly learned that it was not a good idea to have both groups airborne at the same time, or World War Three would break out above the base. He said that one Egyptian pilot, a close relative of King Farouk, had crashed four Spits, each loss a clear cut case of pilot error with nothing at all wrong with the aircraft, but he was unsackable - the King just kept paying for a replacement aircraft after each crash - until he suffered a genuine problem in a fifth Spit, where he couldn't get the undercarriage down. He circled the field, saying nothing and ignoring all calls from ATC and not asking for assistance or advice, until he ran out of fuel.

The same bloke said that senior instructors used to insist that a trainee should maintain strict 'straight and level' for 30 seconds after every aerobatic manoeuvre. A succession of junior instructors would ask "why not teach them a sequence like we all learned on pilot's course, where they transition smoothly from one manoeuver to the next?" to be told "No way; we'll be fighting these bastards in the not too distant future. Insist on 30 seconds straight and level after every manoeuvre."

Those were the days before anyone had heard of Political Correctness.

[AGS Man]

Some Iraqi Airbases during Desert Storm had a radio control system for raising and lowering the Arrester Barrier. The Manufacturers being good Americans passed on those frequencies to the Coalition. As to whether this info was used to good effect I don't know.

[spekesoftly]

........ (or even better a GCA!) to then unleash your weapons seemed quite amusing.

Highly amusing for the GCA controller who, suspecting a ruse, talks you into the ground! ;)

[Pontius Navigator]

Andu The same bloke said that senior instructors used to insist that a trainee should maintain strict 'straight and level' for 30 seconds after every aerobatic manoeuvre. A succession of junior instructors would ask "why not teach them a sequence like we all learned on pilot's course, where they transition smoothly from one manoeuver to the next?" to be told "No way; we'll be fighting these bastards in the not too distant future. Insist on 30 seconds straight and level after every manoeuvre."

Indeed we were told this during training too.

S-D, trust me, I am not shooting lines, I have a very good memory (for the moment though I do tend to forget why I went upstairs). Thank you too WrathM.

[Shackman]

Andu and PN,

re Insist on 30 seconds straight and level after every manoeuvre.

This was still the teaching for the Arab students at 6FTS in 1967 (whilst our Israeli students disappeared for some 'extra-curicular' activity).

[Trim Stab]

We were having one of those random crewroom conversations the other day (as you do) and the idea of using an airfield Navaid to find and attack an airfield came up. The idea of using an ILS (or even better a GCA!) to then unleash your weapons seemed quite amusing.
So my question is, has there ever been a known occasion when an aircraft has used such a tactic to find and attack a target. Or have the 'enemy' always been smart enough to turn off such devices?
BV



About the time of Kosovo one of the thrusting young squadron commanders (who had done a tour in the AAC) experimented with a plan to attack an airfield by flying a three-ship helicopter formation at high speed down the ILS. They practised it a couple of times with an Agusta flying the ILS and Gazelles then Lynxes formating either side, tight enough so that they were in the radar blob of the Agusta. I think the plan was to use the technique if the airfield was too clagged up to jump in.

[Bob Viking]

So our conversation was not as ridiculous as we thought at the time. I wonder what other great ideas we can come up with? Maybe if we introduce alcohol next time we can really make a difference.
BV

[Lordflasheart]

KHI VOR by the IAF during one of them's wars. Can't remember if it was on the field though. It was said the Qantas crews were joyfully calling the fall of shot from the BOAC Resthouse. LFH