OPeration Corporate AARI'S

[manxman57]

As far as my research into Operation Corporate, I am trying to clear up a bit of confusion regarding the AARI's that flew with the Vulcans. Please can you Help


My list so far is


Flt Lt Dick Russell Black Buck 1 Flt Martin Withers
Flt Lt Pete Standing Black Buck 2 Sdn Ldr Reeve
Flt Lt Ian Clifford Not Known
Flt Lt Paul Gausden Not Known
Flt LT Gardiner Not Known


I have read most of the books and Magazine articles on Corporate and have run out of ideas except seeing the Form 540 at the National Archives
Many Thanks for any help


Manxman57 /Roger Brooks

[Pontius Navigator]

Form 541 is the one you need with crew lists per sortie.

[Pontius Navigator]

See PMs for ...........

[jonw66]

Thanks Pontius
I directed Roger here from the Key Publishing site in the hope yourself and TTN etc. would be able to help.
Cheers
Jon

[Darvan]

Black Bucks 4, 5 and 6 all flew without an AARI. Flt Lt Brian Gardner was the third pilot or 6th crew member and he was a Vulcan captain from No 9 Sqn (attached to the crew of No 50 Sqn).

[Archimedes]

Air 27/3579 (the 50 Sqn 540/541) offers some insights, but confuses as well as helps if taken at face value.

For Black Bucks 4, 5 and 6 the crew (spelling below is as it is in the document, BTW) list is:

Sqn Ldr CN McDougall (Captain)
Flt Lt Gardner (co-pilot)
Fg Off CCM Lackman (3rd pilot)
Flt Lt DA Castle (Radar)
Flt Lt B Smith (Plotter)
Flt Lt R Trevaskus (AEO)

Annex C of the 540 for May 82 describes BB4, and describing the start of the sortie, the author (unnamed, but I presume Flt Lt Gardner) says 'As AARI, I was flying from the right hand seat' - I assume that this was Flt Flt Gardner, but cannot be certain.

For Black Buck 5, the crew is listed as above, minus Flt Lt Smith. Since he is mentioned in Annex D of the 540 as being part of the BB5 crew, as well as being name-checked in Dave Castle's chapter in Vulcan Boys, I'm assuming that this was an omission by whoever complied the 540...

And for Black Buck 6, the same crew again - and again, Flt Lt Gardiner [sic, note changed spelling] is described in Annex A of the 540 for June - as the AARI.


Black Buck 7 was flown by Martin Withers' crew, of course.

Flt Lt Clifford is listed as being the 6th crew member of Sqn Ldr Montgomery's crew.

And finally, but by no means least, Flt Lt Gausden is listed as the 6th member of the McDougall crew by the 540, but as we have seen, Flt Lt Gardner was in that position for BBs 4,5 and 6. I think I am correct in saying that he was the Ppruner 'Art Field', who is sadly no longer with us?

[Darvan]

Forms 540 are not necessarily always accurate as the one mentioned above proves. Brian Gardner was not a Victor AARI but a Vulcan pilot and 9 Sqn captain. He was the third pilot and Chris Lackman (now deceased - see the thread on the Abingdon air show accident) was the crew's co-pilot. This 50 Sqn crew was the only crew that flew without an AARI - and they flew 3 of the 6 Black Bucks.

[BEagle]

Archimedes asked I think I am correct in saying that he was the PPRuNer 'Art Field', who is sadly no longer with us?

Correct. Paul passed away in August 2013.

[Archimedes]

Darvan - agreed; my puzzlement lies in the comment by the author of the report of BBs 4 and 6 about being an AARI, hence my observation that the 540/541 confuses as well as helps.

[charliegolf]

Would someone decode AARI for me please? Thanks.

CG

[Biggus]

Charlie,

Air to Air Refueling Instructor.

[manxman57]

I would like to say a big thank you for sorting this for me as trying to obtain access to the 540 and 541 is rather hard and long winded. I spent 12 years with the tanker fleet and ended up as a Crew Chief on both the Mk 1and 2 tankers. My first overseas flight was with Bob Tuxford on Completion of his Captains Course to RAF Akrotiri and return.


Thanks again


Roger Brooks
Author Handley Page Victor Volume 1 & 2 Published By Pen and Sword

[Tengah Type]

Wg Cdr Colin Seymour flew AAR Support for MRR (Maritime Radar Recce) Nos 1 & 2, and as Primary on MRR 3. He then flew twice
on Blackbuck 1, as well as Blackbuck 2, before tanking the first wave of Vulcans back to UK on 7 May.

He was called back to ASI a few days later to replace Flt Lt Ian Clifford who had become unavailable.

I do not know if he flew with the Vulcans.

[Tankertrashnav]

Hello Roger. I've come late to this thread, but wouldn't have been able to help anyway as I was out of the game by the time these events occurred. Glad you got your info.

Its funny how your perspective changes as you get older. When I saw Dick Russell on the programme about Black Buck One a while back he seemed younger than I remembered him when I was on 214 in the 70s. But of course I was a fresh faced young lad then and he was an ancient grizzled old flight lieutenant of at least 40!

[Darvan]

Manxman57 (and Archimedes), I can add a little further clarity to your enquiry. I have a copy of Annex E to the RAF Waddingtom Form 540 for May 82 (for Black Buck 4) right in front of me at his minute. The author does clearly state 'As AARI I was flying from the right hand seat'. I believe the author would have been Chris Lackman who was the mission co-pilot (The F540 compiling officer was usually a junior officer on the squadron). Only Chris and Brian Gardner sat in the right hand seat on BBs 4, 5 and 6; Neil McDougal never got out of the left hand seat - not once. I guess Chris meant to write and should have written, 'As the AAR pilot....', NOT 'As the AARI....', as he most definitley was not an AARI. Of course there is a chance that Brian composed this narrative for the F540 (but he too was not an AARI). But just to add a tiny bit of confusion, the signature at the foot of the document belongs to Neil McDougall!

It just shows that even Forms 540, written in the immediate aftermath of an event when memories are fresh, do not always tell the truth.

[charliegolf]

Thanks BIGGUS, I thought as much; or maybe that it was too simple!

CG

[manxman57]

You and I must have been on 214 at the same time I was on the Engineering side as a Sgt Engines ending up as a Crew Chief on 214 and later on the K2 Fleet with 55 and 57 I left the RAF 1980 for BP in London
a small world.


Roger

[manxman57]

This name appears in Vulcan 607 on a few occasions any ideas who he was,
Not Victor as far as I can see.


Roger

[NRU74]

He was Victor K1/K1A initially as a co-pilot starting in 1967 then as a Captain. He left the RAF (not sure if it was his 8 yr point or whether he took redundancy) but rejoined as a Fighter Controller (could have been Air Traffic) He subsequently returned to flying duties on Victor K2s
I'll leave it for someone else to explain re Op Corporate

[Tankertrashnav]

manxman - check your PMs

[Marcantilan]

A quick question. I was researching in the Argentine archives, and I find that some of the Vulcan departures (BB4, for example) were warned to the islands and mainland airfields.

I suspect the spy was the Primorye AGI deployed nearby.

Other info researched is about planes in ASI, and maybe the info came from a sattellite.

So que question, Vulcan crews expected total surprise over the targer (AFTER BB1) or they assume someone was spying in behalf the Argentines?

Best regards!

[Darvan]

Following the first 2 Black Buck missions, Black Bucks 4-6 were planned as SEAD missions (Black Buck 3 was cancelled due to weather). The crew of BB4, 5 and 6 were aware of the Soviet AGI moored some 15 nm to the south of Ascension Island and were not naive about its activities or motives. However, when BB5 broke the radar horizon at around 40 nm with a climb to 12 000 ft from low level, it appeared to the crew that they had achieved an element of surprise (due to the response of the ARI-18228 Radar Warning Receiver). Black Buck 6 was a little different and the crew always held a suspicion that their arrival had not been totally un-expected.

Some 30 years after the event, information came to light on this forum that the crew of Grupo de Artilleria Antiaerea (GAA) 601, manning a Sky Guard Fire Control Unit, had indeed received a tip-off. Unfortunately, that information did not prevent the destruction of their unit and the death of 4 of its crew.

Roll the clock forward again to 2014 and this forum was used to publicise the visit of a number of Argentinian Air Force veterans to the UK last summer; I think the historian arranging the visit was a gentleman named Andrew Smith who resides in Budapest. The Super Etendard and Sky Hawk veterans, along with the commander of GAA 601 back in 1982, withdrew from the visit at late notice. The Vulcan 597 crew never did get the opportunity to discuss those events with the Sky Guard veteran, discussions that may have clarified their assumption and suspicion one way or the other.

For those interested in the previously un-told story of Black Bucks 4, 5 and 6, the truth of those 3 missions can be found in Tony Blackman's book, Vulcan Boys (link here).

http://www.blackmanbooks.co.uk/vulcan%20boys%20chapter%2014.pdf

[Tankerchief]

Yes, F/l Ian Clifford was indeed a Victor Mk 2 captain. I had the unfortunate opportunity to fly with him, as the crew chief, on a couple of occassions. The Ascension situation is best left to others.

[Tengah Type]

Ian Clifford left the Victor Force in mid 1982 to become a Scribbly.

[manxman57]

Many thanks for the info on the above any more information from anything to do with Corporate gratefully received


Roger Brooks

[Brian W May]

Is this the same Sqn Ldr Neil McDougall that was on Tristars as a Flt Cdr circa 1990?

[Marcantilan]

Thanks a lot Darvan!

[AndySmith]

Hi Davran

You are correct in that the meeting in May suffered in attendence. The first problem was that we sent an open invitation to as many former air force pilots as possible to try to increase the attendance, which included some serving officers, and the knowledge reached higher levels and it was made know to those planning to attend that their visit to the UK wouldn't been seen through favourable eyes, and their UK embassy (which with the current ambassador having a very aggressive policy regarding the islands) starting to ask for lists of attendees for a meeting which was meant to be "private". Needless to say, cold feet all round.

As far as the GADA 601 chap, he didn't arrive in the UK on the saturday as planned, and we only got an email from him saying he wasn't coming on the Sunday. It turned out that he'd gone to Argentina to attend to a sick relative and sort out a residential home for her. Quite why he didn't tell either myself or the Argentine historian who was organising them is beyond me. As the GADA 601 chap was the instigator of this "meeting", it was somewhat unfortunate. He does travel to Europe once a year, and if you guys do want to meet him, I suggest contacting him through his PPrune username and sorting something out directly with him. He's a really nice chap and has reasonable English.

So, from having a good range of people coming over, we ended up with just a couple, which was a real shame.

However, one of those that turned up, who was head of maintenance of the Dagger squadron at one of the mainland bases, confirmed that they had prior warning of the Vulcan attack on the 1st May, and indeed had flown their daggers away from the base that night. They did not know the destination of the mission to be flown. How did they know this - for me there is only one credible answer, and the same one that provided satellite intel on the movements of the fleet that enable planning of the exocet raids.

Recently we have had more success with connecting veterans. a few weeks ago meeting took place in Buenos Aires between a COAN naval pilot who discovered the landing fleet on the 21st May and the Lynx pilot who he nearly shot down before he saw the ships and went for them instead. That meeting would not have been possible without this forum, through which I tracked down the Lynx chap. Thanks Pprune.

Cheers

Andy

[Darvan]

Black Buck One's planned ingress did rely on an element of surprise to enhance its chances of survival. Intel suggested that the airfield was defended by a combination of 35mm Oerlikan guns and/or Roland surface-to-air missiles. Black Buck 1 also benefitied from carrying the Westinghouse -10 ECM pod on one of the Skybolt pylons that was primed with a deception jamming programme. Remaining above a sanctuary height of 12 000 ft assured it of a low risk of attrition to surface-to-air weapon systems.

Black Bucks 5 and 6 were an entirely different matter though. Both Skybolt pylons were taken up by Shrike AGM-45 anti-radiation missiles and so Vulcan 597 was not afforded the protection of any ECM capability. An element of surprise was only required to ensure that Argentinian air-to-air defences were not pre-alerted and that Black Bucks 5 and 6 were not met by Daggers on CAP.

Following ingress at low level and a climb to 12 000 ft, Black Bucks 5 and 6 had to announce their presence and go active to try and entice Argentinian defences to illuminate them. An ARM such as Shrike needed to home in on an active radar to be effective. Indeed, Black Buck 6 descended from its sanctuary height into the MEZ from a 20 degree dive and bottomed out as low as 6 000 ft so as to entice the Sky Guard radar to illuminate Vulcan 597 and the Super Oerlikan guns to open fire. In this manner it was able to gain a firing solution on the Sky Guard fire control unit and destroy it with a direct hit.

Any intel that the Soviet AGI provided would have enabled the Argentinians to man a CAP at the appropriate time if they decided that was a priority. Or was it more important to retain the Daggers for defence of the mainland?

The full story of these missions can be found in the link I provided earlier to the chapter in 'Vulcan Boys'. The first time in over 30 years that the truth of these missions has finally been recounted.