Cold War days - A/C turnaround times

[ExRAFRadar]

If this information is still classified I obviously understand why it cannot be discussed here. But here goes.

Some of you may recall I was developing a scenario for a commercial wargame to do with a WW3 Battle of Britain type scenario.

It's still going on, mostly because a few of us have been waiting for some game updates.

However quite a big bone of contention is still being thrown about. This time to do with sortie turnaround rates.

As a standard the game gives a 6 hour turnaround rate, with some exceptions. For example Air Defense types can have a 2 hour turnaround, probably because their mission is so much simpler. (Fishing rod in river, bites expected)

This arbitrary number is obviously causing us Geeks to throw their toys out of their prams and start name calling.

So if any anyone can share any experiences that do not have Plod banging on your door I would like to have them.

Bear in mind we are looking at Wartime sortie rates. As in "Launch or Grimsby gets it" times.

The devs of the game are building a module to simulate this facet of Air Ops and also gives them the scope to enhance other things that affect turn around times.

As always, any help, p*ss takes or virtual thrown items are welcome.

PS - one of the scenario testers asked why Grimsby keeps getting attacked by so many Backfires. My ex comes from a little village about 10 miles away from there. And I added a POL site to the village. Not that I am bitter.

[Courtney Mil]

To be honest, if it's Grimsby, what's the rush? Well, you did invite piss takes.

Simple, unclassified answer. Completely and deliberately inaccurate numbers. There is no single figure. Add together the following. 5 mins to taxi in, 5 mins to winch back into HAS and shut down. 5 mins to do paper work. 15-25 mins to refuel and do servicing. Weapons upload, depends how many weapons were expended on previous sortie. Give it 30 minutes. Crew acceptance and aircraft cocking, 20 minutes. Back "on state".

Now, all of that requires a fully serviceable jet, all the engineering teams immediately available, no interruptions to the turn round by enemy action, ground crew not in full NBC kit, no delays in the arrival of fuel boser (who else is being turned round), weapons, etc, etc.

If the aircrew is staying with the jet, can they turn round in the same time? Normally yes. But if the jet lands with a snag that cannot be carried, the timescale goes up by the diagnostic time, delivery of spares and appropriate technicians and repair time. That may also require a full weapons download/upload.

Is that complicated and vague enough? Sorry. Remember in a shooting war it may be acceptable to carry more snags than in peacetime.

Best,

Courtney

[Stuff]

An arbitrary turnaround is far too simplistic.

To calculate a reasonable time you need to know:
- Did the previous sortie expended any stores; weapons, flare, chaff etc
- Is the subsequent sortie planned for the same fit, if not, could I accept the previous fit rather than re-role.
- Do any of the fuze settings need to be changed?
- How long has the aircraft flown since the last oil change (can we squeeze in an ERCC?)
- Did the aircraft go U/S for any reason? I love the idea of every snag being fixed in 6 hours :D
- Is the subsequent task pre-planned or reactive - is the turn round limit a airframe limitation (time taken to service, refuel and rearm) or a crew limitation (are they are still in the planning room reacting to late info)

Edit: Meh, Courtney beat me to it :(

[Pontius Navigator]

I saw an F6 do a TR from landing to airborne in minutes.

Landed at Luqa, straight on to the ORP, missile pack dropped and reloaded, refuelled and off.

On another exercise, Harriers from 1 Sqn did 100 sorties per day for 3 days operating from hides at RAF West Raynham. They did a bus route, take off, bomb Holbeach range, rtb, rearm and repeat.

We also had some interesting times on Nimrods.

Ps, I also saw a 4-ship Fishbeds recover at Luxor just before the Yom Kippur war. As each landed they turned off at different high speed turn offs and continued at high speed to 4 different HAS sites. This avoided a bunched target in the open, avoided queues at the sites, and created 4 targets with only one aircraft at each - very impressive and clearly operational work up with lessons learnt from the previous war.

[Courtney Mil]

PN, all turnarounds can be done in minutes. How many is the real question.

Just kidding. Know what you mean.

[NutLoose]

Other factors are has it flown in a NBC environment, are you landing back in one etc, as decontamination becomes a factor.

- Did the aircraft go U/S for any reason? I love the idea of every snag being fixed in 6 hours

Real all out war though you would be doing BDR and not playing by the normal rules.


..

[Courtney Mil]

For a simulation (which I'd love to see one day), do you all think that for a normal turn round my rough numbers, an additional, random element of system snags with random repair times, factors for weapons expenditure, re tasking (Stuff's point) and Battle Damage Repair (previous sortie or on ground) would work?

Just trying to be helpful for a change. :ok:

[NutLoose]

Yes agree, but lots of factors can come into it, battle damage to the airfield for one, a winch is great until you have no power etc. Similar damaged taxiways, I often though it's great having a HAS site but daft only having one entrance to it.

[Lordflasheart]

The Israeli Air Force (which I am led to believe takes this stuff seriously) "routinely" used war time turn round times of under ten minutes to refuel and rearm. Pilots flew up to eight or so sorties a day. This "force multiplier" caused the other sides to claim that this proved the IAF was being assisted by hundreds of US and Brit aircraft. Referring to 67 and 73 here, rather than 56 when Brit and French actually were. ...... ..LFH

[Al R]

Other factors are has it flown in a NBC environment, are you landing back in one etc, as decontamination becomes a factor.

Nutty,

Most decontamination on leading surfaces would take place in flight via ablation and most physical agents would be found on the underside picked up when the ac taxied through contamination on the airfield. If there was surface contamination, canopies, optics etc would be treated with something non corrosive. If Grimsby was about to get it, any decontam would be quick and dirty - the issue was decontaminating the area so the aircrew could get out and AR5 themselves to the HAS/COLPRO/UCP/HCP etc. That was where most effort was imagined. On the plus side, if things are about to go nuclear it's nearly all over. Excellent. Time to hit the NAAFI.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

T/Rs are generally a lot quicker if the weapons/fuel fit doesn't change. AD and Harrier would probably be the best examples for a WWIII scenario. Also, if an AD jet is partially rearmed it can still scramble and do a partial job. Not necessarily so for mudmovers in general.
Next point would be whether the jets were being turned round at home plate, same role base, NATO base or somewhere in the sticks. It's all a bit different if you are working out of a WWII nissen hut on a civvy airfield in the Middle of Nowhere (or Stornoway, as it is more commonly known)
As our groundcrew on Tornado F3 discovered on numerous detachments, half the LRU "failures" could be solved by shuffling the boxes into different jets. One of the last 'black arts' that!


p.s. Grimsby would never have 'got it', for the same reason we didn't try to assassinate Hitler. ;)


oh, and remember that most aircrew were T/R certified. For two-crew AD missions, one can go the the brief whilst the other helps the T/R crew (I've done that!) It's the weapons guys and snag wizards that matter.

[NutLoose]

Quote:
Other factors are has it flown in a NBC environment, are you landing back in one etc, as decontamination becomes a factor.
Nutty,

Most decontamination on leading surfaces would take place in flight via ablation and most physical agents would be found on the underside picked up when the ac taxied through contamination on the airfield. If there was surface contamination, canopies, optics etc would be treated with something non corrosive. If Grimsby was about to get it, any decontam would be quick and dirty - the issue was decontaminating the area so the aircrew could get out and AR5 themselves to the HAS/COLPRO/UCP/HCP etc. That was where most effort was imagined. On the plus side, if things are about to go nuclear it's nearly all over. Excellent. Time to hit the NAAFI.

Al, I used to decontam them on exercise... Memories of full NBC with a plastic suit over that in high summer armed to the teeth with bucket and brush still brings me out in a cold sweat.

[Al R]

I used to hate those ac decontam courses - agreed though, it was a miserable job for the groundcrew and you have my sympathies to this day. I think you did it for reasons which were never properly challenged, truth be told. It was done because it looked punchy etc, but how often did we exercise something knowing that the drill wasn't always the important thing, rather, the experience that went into it - a little like contact drills.

The introduction of the Karcher for 1990 helped but the downside was that the downwind spray and plume created nightmares. The decontamination suit was good for losing a few pounds quickly in but the MK1 bucket and stirrup pump was good for doing your patio and that was it. In fact, it wasn't even good for doing that.

Doctrine at Winterbourne Gunner was always that we would fight dirty if Europe ever kicked off. That all changed for Granby where to fight clean was to fight with happy faces. Mainly, it has to be said, due to the high ambient temperatures evaporating thickened contamination more quickly and creating an intense immediate vapour hazard but an overall much lesser contact one over the medium/longer term.

[camlobe]

IIRC, the fastest turnaround times we averaged during Taceval etc would be around two hours IF there were no big snags (not a common occurrence).

Fastest I remember? One night, Mayday call on the radio. One of our kites doing circuits and bumps, lands immediately and taxies in. The bowser was arriving as he shut down. Refuel to brimming followed by the biggest re-role I ever saw. Every 1.75" flare on the station into large ally tubs and thrown inside where there was room. No role equipment chart for this trip. A couple of ground crew volunteers for observers, and the old girl was off. Total time probably around 40 minutes.

Although this happened during the Cold War, others can decide on its relevance to the OP' request for info.

The Mayday? From a Bucc over the North Sea who saw a splash. Sadly, it was his wingman. A bad day.

Camlobe

[RetiredF4]

Long time ago (f-4), we did practice (simulated) hot refueling with running engines outside the HAS during exercise. There was even a checklist available. I think it was skipped later on due to the risk of hot brakes, as it saved only time when the chute was not used. With running engines the chute couldn't be replaced.

Normal turnaround with nothing broken before under 1 hour?

[4mastacker]

I'm sure some distinguished gentlemen who were at Gutersloh in the 70's will recall the turnaround times 19 and 92 were achieving during Mini and Tacevals. I recall being told by a 92 liney that once an aircraft had reached its revetment (pre-HAS days of course ) it was not in there very long before it was on its way again.

[ExRAFRadar]

Apologies for long post

Thanks to everyone who replied. Excellent posts all and much food for thought. I am collating all this stuff and will feed back to the Devs.

Turnaround time is becoming a real live wire topic for this sim. Especially for the Mud Movers. Some of the types from the Soviet Strategic Air Arms are taking 24 hours to turnaround ! But these are your Backfire and Bears doing their AS4 strategic strike thing.

FA units flying out of captured NATO bases, East Germany etc are doing the 6 hour shuffle.

Over the year or so the sim has been out the Cabbage Nerds (me included) have come out of the woodwork. It really is a Spotters delight but along with that comes Spotter knowledge. A real world B1B Weapons chap got online to point out a database error on a munition type the thing can carry.

Following recent events in Sweden there is currently thread going on over Mini Subs in the sim. Someone has noticed that there does not appear to be any in it so about 25 posts are there discussing these things. One of the posts says this:
"One major difference between Triton-NN and Triton-2 is that NN can hydroplane and travel much faster on the surface. "

The Devs are now adding both variants to the database.

That is the level of involvement people take over this sim.


Some specific replies:

Courtney - "For a simulation (which I'd love to see one day) "

So would I :) This thing is like writing a novel. Change 1 thing and it rolls down to all the other events. This Turnaround time is going to be a game changer.

Biggest problem we had was to do with AAR. You would order aircraft to go to the Tow Line and they would sometimes bimble off, get there and not join. Other times they would just ignore your order. Aircraft on CAP would RTB at Bingo but refuse all orders to go to a Tanker instead. Another 'feature' was that aircraft would only RTB to homeplate, not any other airfield. And setting up a Falklands Vulcan raid would just be a nightmare. Few of us tried it once and there were Tankers all over the place doing their thing. None of it to do with refueling each other :O

The new routines are much, much better.

Strike Planning was also a pain. The whole thing had to be micromanaged otherwise you would see things like 208 Sqn Bucc's barrel in at low level, fire their ASM's at a big fat juicy Ivan Carrier and then popup to 30K feet, go to cruise power and RTB. Right in the middle of the SAM envelope.Sad day at Lossie that day.

Whole new Strike Package tool is being developed which apparently will mimic real world software.

There is a major patch due out soon so I am waiting to see what comes out of that.

Fox3 - "p.s. Grimsby would never have 'got it', for the same reason we didn't try to assassinate Hitler."

Bit rough on Hitler.

camlobe - This is the sort of Turnaround thing that I think is going to be hard to simulate but I wish it could.
The whole thing about 'Going to War with snags/incomplete info' etc is very difficult to get down pat.
Fatigue for example is not modeled. Not a big thing at the moment as most scenarios are around 3 days long at the most.
But there are plans to try and model campaigns, the Falklands being one, so it would have to be factored in. I know our Sky Gods can fly and fight for weeks on end without resorting to Red Bull but no one believes me.

Again, thank you all for replying.

[ian16th]

When the Hunter came into service, with its Aden 'gun pack' and pressure re-fueling, the boast was that it could be turned round in 30 minutes!

[HaveQuick2]

OTR times on Jags, Tornados and Phantoms were easily under 30 minutes from chocks in to taxi. Rearm, refuel, Replens.


I am reticent to give some of the spectacular times some of our teams would manage, but after repeated base ex, minival, maxeval, taceval etc, they would become really well honed.

[Pontius Navigator]

Flash, thanks for that. I will now confirm the F6 time quoted was as near operational as could be done and was 6 minutes. It was an exchange pilot and he nailed the bomber he had missed on the previous launch before it reached the target.

Bomber at 240 miles when F6 recovered. At about 120 when the F6 landed, 72 when it scrambled and about 50 when splashed. (Just a rough guess)

[Just This Once...]

The role of the aircraft can make a big difference. Doing QTRs on the Tor GR1a was incredibly quick - land, taxi, refuel whilst new targets delivered to the cockpit and tapes dropped and new pack of VHS tapes inserted. It took minutes and meant taking to the air again with little idea of what the next few recce targets would be or what a safe tactical routing would entail.

In truth some of this was fudged as the final automated edit of the tapes would take an age. As we were judged by the time on the ground we often transited back at a relatively low speed to allow time for the in-flight recce report and allow the edit to finish. Otherwise you could taxi back and have to wait for the edit to finish.

The number of armorers available is probably the critical path these days. They have always been undermanned as in peacetime there is relatively little for them to do. Doing away with practice stores has allowed for further cuts in their numbers. Once you go to war and drop or part-retain mixed weapon loads, part fire the gun, require role changes, prep new weapons and fix minor snags then we suffer the consequences of regarding armorers as a nice-to-have trade.

[oldpax]

Re the "Hunter"a ground team could turn round two hunters in less than 30 minutes,a lot less ,that included the gun pack ,oxygen ,avpin and fuel!Maybe the warm climate(Aden) and lack of clothing made us a little quicker than the UK erks?

[nimbev]

ExRAFRadar

I assume from your comments re 208 Sqn Buccs in the ASUW role that your wargaming would also cover Nimrod.

Once Nimrod was loaded with nucs we had a terrible problem if anything other than routine maintenance and rectification was required during turnround. The weapons had to be downloaded, handed back to the US custodians (we carried US weapons), taken back to the weapon storage areas, then after aircraft rectification, bought back to the aircraft, handed over to the RAF, loaded back onto the aircraft and then taken over by the crew. This all took an inordinate amount of time and I doubt that it could have been shortened very much in wartime unless a lot of the fundimental principles of handling nuc weapons went out the window.

It would be interesting to hear the views of any ex Nimrod armourers.

[ExRAFRadar]

Nimrods do indeed feature as well as Shacks.

Re the Nuke thing - I am modelling purely Conventional weapons at the moment.

However there is some discussion about if Tac Nukes were used at sea then it might not mean instant escalation.

My personal feeling is that any use of Nukes at any level would soon spiral out of control.

If I am Ivan and I have just lost a whole load of SSGN and SSN to tactical nuke depth charges, which stops me punching a hole in the Convoys coming across the Pond I might just think , "OK load up the Backfires with the big buckets of Instant Sunshine and stop those convoys"

But what yo have got me interested in Nimrod turnaround times in the Conventional role.

For example I would expect the same crew, doing the same mission not to have go to Debrief/Brief. A 'Hot' Debrief/Brief in the aircraft, new stores loaded and away you go.

Would this be accurate ?

And here I have to say that crew fatigue on the LRMP task would have to be a factor.

I mean it's not all "Light the Fires, kick the tires, first off is Leader, brief on Guard"

;)

[woptb]

Harriers GR3's,Gut,mid 08's. Standard OTR (Operational Turn Round) weapons load for the Harrier, was 2 bombs,2 guns,that is 2 BL755 cluster bombs and full HE per Aden cannon.
If memory serves total turnround time would be around 15-20 minutes with a good team and there was a lot of pride around being a good OTR team.

[John Eacott]

ASW screening for the fleet was our role, and the longest I recall a Ripple 3 was for two weeks. That's 3 ASW Sea Kings airborne for 4 hour sorties 24 hours a day, turnround was generally a refuel and crew change in about 5-10 minutes. Turn round was dictated by the ship's requirements to maintain MLA against giving us some sort of compliance with wind limits for launch/recovery.

Aircraft were pulled for service as scheduled and replaced in the programme to maintain continuity, crew roster was briefing 1 hour prior to launch, 4 hours airborne, debrief, scran in the ACRB, off to the pit and start again in 6 hours.

Fixed wing were far more relaxed ;)

[Pontius Navigator]

A Nimrod could carry 6 or 9 torpedoes in racks of 3.

For a single prosecution it was likely that only 2 would be dropped. After the first wad dropped it would take a finite time to relocate the target. Clearly you might get a one shot kill. You might also get a second chance quickly.

Your chance of a third drop, especially on a second submarine, would be slim.

Most torpedoes would be expended on close support with urgent attacks used more for deterrence.

It follows therefore that rearming, if time was of the essence, could be deferred if at least 4 weapons remained. The critical turn round would be fuel and continuous.

And crew wise, until you ran out of crews, should not be a problem. Read Hackett' s book WW 3.

[Ogre]

camlobe - I remember that night well, or rather the next morning when we woke up and found the bunch across the runway had lost a jet overnight, I helped unload the bits they dredged up from a low loader.

One thing to add about the armourers, even though we were "other" trades, we were trained to be part of load teams to assist on re-arming the jet under the supervision of a bombhead sneck. For example We were carefully drilled on using the loader to lift the 1000lb to a couple inches short of the pylon, then adjust the front/back and left/right on the bomb tray so it lined up with the Explosive Release Unit (ERU_ before raising it up the last few inches and locking it into place.

At three in the morning the more usual procedure was for front/back to be adjusted by moving the loader, then the left/right was resolved by the bombhead leaning on the bomb tray until it was lined up then we pumped like hell to raise it unto the ERU and lock it in before the bombhead let go.

This only works on the wing pylons, there was not enough space in the bomb bay to do the left/right leaning.

Four bombs in the bomb bay, two on the wings and a sidewinder on the outer I think, but then we had to take them all off and replace the CBLS on the wings before it went off

[con-pilot]

As we are talking about Cold War aircraft, we should not leave out the B-36 and make no mistake, the B-36 was a Cold War aircraft.

According to my father, the normal 'combat' turnaround time, which was classified back during the day, for the B-36 was about two days, mostly due to maintenance issues. Hell, it took hours just to refuel it and to service all the oil tanks.

[CharlieJuliet]

Re Post 20. PN was that the Malta Adex in Oct 67? On that Exercise I recall that the bombers were Vulcans from Malta and Canberras from Akrotiri. The exercise covered 3 days and on one of the days the bomber stream waited till we ( 5 Sqn Lightnings) had been scrambled and then did a 360. GCI quickly realised this and we recovered to Luqa straight away. The first aircraft was back on state and scrambled again before the bomber stream had completed its 360, and I think we were all airborne again before the bombers got to Malta. On the night part of the Exercise the Maltese PM was sitting outside the tower watching, and we were asked to keep the burners in till 20000 ft.

[Saintsman]

In the F4 revetment days at Leuchars, the limiting factor was getting the fuel in.

On an OTR, things were being opened / removed as the aircraft was being pushed back (with the engines still running).

Everything could be replenished by the time the fuel was uploaded, including crew and weapons.

Maybe not as slick, but very similar to the F1 pit stops. Everyone had a job to do and everyone was prepared.

Impressive to watch and you knew that you'd done a good job at the end.

[glad rag]

Hmm.

With a good team who [had] worked together and an I/C who really was on the ball with his blokes it became a ballet at times as it just flowed perfectly.

Then again all it took was one chippy kh and it could go lossie almost from the start....:)

[Pontius Navigator]

CJ, yes, that was the one. We had 3 different raid plans one for each day. The Canberras, disappointingly, used the same plan each day.

On the fake raid all aircraft exited radar cover apart from one. He turned back on plan so that QTR aircraft requested authority to engage. The Vulcan crew ordered him to recover and Magdalena assumed he wanted to recover.

He realised he had need spoofed hence the Qtr; well that's my understanding.

In the PDX out raid plans were declared unfair as the Egyptian Air Force was not that sophisticated.

Overall I think you got most if not all the raiders, but then we were playing fighter rules.

[NutLoose]

Hmm.

With a good team who [had] worked together and an I/C who really was on the ball with his blokes it became a ballet at times as it just flowed perfectly.

Then again all it took was one chippy kh and it could go lossie almost from the start....



But that is the point in the military, every man pulling together 110% to produce results from the supplier and cook down to the end product, all working in harmony to accomplish the task. It was never all about a pilot hitting the target, but about a whole range of people pulling together to attain the final goal, the pilot was just the end " product" in the delivery chain and any one of them faltering could break it.

[CharlieJuliet]

Yes had heard that our QTRs were called unfair as they were so quick. Can't remember actual times but believe there were several wheels on to wheels off times of 15 minutes or less. By the way I think that we bought a young lady controller from Patrington with us to help at Madeleina and so, as the bombers could not reproduce her voice, we avoided too many spoof calls.

[Pontius Navigator]

CJ, I remember her well, drop dead gorgeous. We went to PXD PU at Magdalena. What a fabulous site.

The best spoofs were the simplest. A Judy Judy call, just when the controller was expecting it was perfect as everyone went quiet :E