Surviving the Fulda Gap
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Lincolnshire
Posts: 543
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Not sure I'd say our training was unrealistic. It was certainly the worst conditions I ever flew in.
Heres an old clip from a BBC documentary that I mentioned. The F4s were getting airborne for a low level north departure to operate in the low flying areas. Not sure the "Rooskies" would have been down there in the clag but if they had been, the will and skill was there on our side. You'd struggle to find crews capable of operating in those conditions without TFR/FLIR/gogs nowadays. Not a criticism, just a fact.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/61510979@N07/5598169065/
Heres an old clip from a BBC documentary that I mentioned. The F4s were getting airborne for a low level north departure to operate in the low flying areas. Not sure the "Rooskies" would have been down there in the clag but if they had been, the will and skill was there on our side. You'd struggle to find crews capable of operating in those conditions without TFR/FLIR/gogs nowadays. Not a criticism, just a fact.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/61510979@N07/5598169065/
Last edited by Geehovah; 7th Apr 2011 at 19:14.
I'm glad I never found out if ours was realistic or not.
What I can say was it did improve in regards the equipment we had. - 1979 a tin hat so big you looked like a drawing pin, a rubber suit and a pick-axe handle.
What I can say was it did improve in regards the equipment we had. - 1979 a tin hat so big you looked like a drawing pin, a rubber suit and a pick-axe handle.
Night low level visidents, on a target with no lights, before they invented NVGs.
That was veeery interesting.
I remember one "comms" recce target I was given turned out to be an RAC phone box in a steep, wooded valley. I challenge current aircrew to find that with gps.
To my recollection, the peacetime loss rate was slightly higher, per flying hour, than the loss rate in the Falklands War, and it was only slightly lower than GW1.
So I think the aircrew training was hard enough.
Can I add that I had no complaints with the efforts of admin branch, etc, who were honorary Squadron members. Excellent value in taceval or normal ops.
Takes more than aircrew to get a jet airborne.
That was veeery interesting.
I remember one "comms" recce target I was given turned out to be an RAC phone box in a steep, wooded valley. I challenge current aircrew to find that with gps.
To my recollection, the peacetime loss rate was slightly higher, per flying hour, than the loss rate in the Falklands War, and it was only slightly lower than GW1.
So I think the aircrew training was hard enough.
Can I add that I had no complaints with the efforts of admin branch, etc, who were honorary Squadron members. Excellent value in taceval or normal ops.
Takes more than aircrew to get a jet airborne.
F3WMB
I know where you're coming from but not sure that I'd totally agree with you there. Current aircrew are no better or worse than the past - just different. I'm fairly sure that current operators could quite happily point to a number of skills that they have that would have blown your minds back in the day. With the training you had I'm sure they could do what you did and vice versa.
I challenge current aircrew to find that with gps.
My references were to collective training.
However I also spent the first 4 years of my career in maritime, looking for all manner of Soviet vessels and operating on CASEXs, low level at night and being horribly, horribly airsick. It is clear that there has been some skill-set fade, yet cold war tactics agasint Saddam in GW1 (who had, frankly, a Soviet IADS) were shown to be wanting, at least initially.
However I also spent the first 4 years of my career in maritime, looking for all manner of Soviet vessels and operating on CASEXs, low level at night and being horribly, horribly airsick. It is clear that there has been some skill-set fade, yet cold war tactics agasint Saddam in GW1 (who had, frankly, a Soviet IADS) were shown to be wanting, at least initially.
Flap 62
My point about the difference between Fast-Jet flying nowadays and during the Cold War is that it was bloody dangerous then, even though it was ‘peacetime’ . Nowadays everything is much safer, both in training and on operations. People just don’t take the risks we used to in the old days - we had to in order to get the job done with some of the lousy equipment we had. I’m not saying that’s good or bad – it’s just a fact.
As an example, how many Fast-Jet operational sorties these days continue on task with no radio or HUD (in poor weather)? We were doing that in the Falklands War – it was SOP in peacetime training and if you’re desperately short of jets that’s the kind of thing you had to do.
Don’t get me wrong, I flew Fast Jets non-stop for 28 years, most of it Mudmoving and Recce, and I loved every minute of it. Had to bury quite a few old colleagues though.
My point about the difference between Fast-Jet flying nowadays and during the Cold War is that it was bloody dangerous then, even though it was ‘peacetime’ . Nowadays everything is much safer, both in training and on operations. People just don’t take the risks we used to in the old days - we had to in order to get the job done with some of the lousy equipment we had. I’m not saying that’s good or bad – it’s just a fact.
As an example, how many Fast-Jet operational sorties these days continue on task with no radio or HUD (in poor weather)? We were doing that in the Falklands War – it was SOP in peacetime training and if you’re desperately short of jets that’s the kind of thing you had to do.
Don’t get me wrong, I flew Fast Jets non-stop for 28 years, most of it Mudmoving and Recce, and I loved every minute of it. Had to bury quite a few old colleagues though.
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Aylesbury
Age: 58
Posts: 378
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
"These tales remind me of being on the mobile defence force at Leuchars. Essentially made up of sprogs who were of no use to their normal trades, we tore around in stripped down landies armed to the teeth with SLRs and LMGs.
Creeping round the northern HAS after intruders one dark night it all felt very Rambo until I felt a hand over my mouth and a whispered Gotcha! in my ear. I was led round a HAS to find the rest of the patrol looking sheepish under guard.
I think the Scots guards were the intruders.
They let us capture them the next day though."
Reminds me of a similar experience at Buchan in the mid 80's when 45 Commando came up to play as intruders. All manner of fun and games ending on the last day with them hovering a Commando Sea King about 5ft off the roof of the BiF, before storming the joint throwing flash-bangs around in most of the Execs offices. Bet that went down well....
Have to say though, considering that most of the time we were more used to being intruded by the Lossie & Leuchars rockape Sqns (who in those days werent averse to giving one of us 'guins an SLR butt in the chops if they dared to try and resist capture), most of the station's guardforce learned more in those three days from 45 than we had done in years.
They fully debriefed the whole guard force at the end of each days play, which was something the Rocks didnt do (maybe figured it was up to the Station Regiment WO to pass on lessons learned instead) which went along the lines of: "This is what happened in this particular exercise inject; this is how you reacted and this was the end result; Now, this is how we think you should react in future, given your level of training and equipment." Top blokes.
Mind you, as has been rightly observed, most of, if not all of UKADGE would have been wiped out by AS4 strikes (or worse) in the first few hours anyway. Documents I remember seeing at the time were predicting raids of 5-7 regiments in size at a time.
How many Bears/Badgers/Backfires per regiment in those days??
Creeping round the northern HAS after intruders one dark night it all felt very Rambo until I felt a hand over my mouth and a whispered Gotcha! in my ear. I was led round a HAS to find the rest of the patrol looking sheepish under guard.
I think the Scots guards were the intruders.
They let us capture them the next day though."
Reminds me of a similar experience at Buchan in the mid 80's when 45 Commando came up to play as intruders. All manner of fun and games ending on the last day with them hovering a Commando Sea King about 5ft off the roof of the BiF, before storming the joint throwing flash-bangs around in most of the Execs offices. Bet that went down well....
Have to say though, considering that most of the time we were more used to being intruded by the Lossie & Leuchars rockape Sqns (who in those days werent averse to giving one of us 'guins an SLR butt in the chops if they dared to try and resist capture), most of the station's guardforce learned more in those three days from 45 than we had done in years.
They fully debriefed the whole guard force at the end of each days play, which was something the Rocks didnt do (maybe figured it was up to the Station Regiment WO to pass on lessons learned instead) which went along the lines of: "This is what happened in this particular exercise inject; this is how you reacted and this was the end result; Now, this is how we think you should react in future, given your level of training and equipment." Top blokes.
Mind you, as has been rightly observed, most of, if not all of UKADGE would have been wiped out by AS4 strikes (or worse) in the first few hours anyway. Documents I remember seeing at the time were predicting raids of 5-7 regiments in size at a time.
How many Bears/Badgers/Backfires per regiment in those days??
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Temporarily missing from the Joe Louis Arena
Posts: 2,131
Received 27 Likes
on
16 Posts
How many Bears/Badgers/Backfires per regiment in those days??
F-104G Starfighter
The F-104G was the mainstay of many NATO air arms prior to being replaced mainly by the F-16. 35% of the 2,578 F-104G built for export (or manufactured outside the USA) were operated by West Germany (as was). West Germany lost 292 of its 916 F-104G claiming the lives of 115 pilots. During my time in RAFG, news of yet another F-104G crash, often in bad weather, seemed a routine occurrence.
Actually the F104G was very nice to fly at Low Level - especially in bad weather. Excellent non-HUD instruments (no obscuration of forward view), rock steady at high speed, a very nice ground mapping radar and Long Range - better than the Jaguar!
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Lincolnshire
Posts: 543
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I had a trip in an F104. Great in a straight line. No radar worth talking about and made a lot of noise (and smoke). Sorry but by the 70s it'd had its day. Like the F4 in the 90s - and I loved flying the F4.
There were a couple of books written in the 80's about the advent of WW3 through the Fulda Gap. One of the books was written by BG Hackett of Bridge Too Far fame. I think it was called "The Third World War". He gave a very good assesment and suggested that the Warsaw Pact forces would achieve intial success but that superior tactics and weapons would eventually result in a NATO victory.
Reference Cold War flying risks:
During the Cold War I flew with ( and helped to train) quite a few American pilots on Exchange Tours with the RAF, many of them with Vietnam tours under the belt. In general they struggled to keep up to speed with RAF- style Low Flying, especially in poor weather. They seemed to be too accustomed to the wide open blue skies of the USA, plus their extremely restrictive rules on flying in poor weather.
For example: at that time American (and German) pilots were not allowed even to PLAN to fly Low Level anywhere the weather was forecast to go below Low Flying minimums. So they never gained experience of dealing with poor weather at Low Level. (In the RAF we were always allowed to get airborne, have a look and make your own decision on whether or not it was suitable.)
Back in the 70s and 80s quite a few American Exchange guys became casualties while flying with the RAF. I remember one of them saying to me at the end of his tour “ Surviving an Exchange Tour with the RAF in peacetime is harder than getting through a couple of tours in Vietnam.”
During the Cold War I flew with ( and helped to train) quite a few American pilots on Exchange Tours with the RAF, many of them with Vietnam tours under the belt. In general they struggled to keep up to speed with RAF- style Low Flying, especially in poor weather. They seemed to be too accustomed to the wide open blue skies of the USA, plus their extremely restrictive rules on flying in poor weather.
For example: at that time American (and German) pilots were not allowed even to PLAN to fly Low Level anywhere the weather was forecast to go below Low Flying minimums. So they never gained experience of dealing with poor weather at Low Level. (In the RAF we were always allowed to get airborne, have a look and make your own decision on whether or not it was suitable.)
Back in the 70s and 80s quite a few American Exchange guys became casualties while flying with the RAF. I remember one of them saying to me at the end of his tour “ Surviving an Exchange Tour with the RAF in peacetime is harder than getting through a couple of tours in Vietnam.”
In the early 90s, I worked for a while on an oil-exploration project in the Komi Republic in Northern Russia. During a session of beer and vodka after work, one of our Russian hosts said quite seriously that they could never understand why anyone in the West felt threatened by the Red Army.
our Russian hosts said quite seriously that they could never understand why anyone in the West felt threatened by the Red Army.
