V- Bombers Over America
 

Is there any-one out there who has any information concerning R.A.F. A/C taking part in exercises to test American Air Defences I seem to remember they took place in the 1960,s, with V-bombers coming in from Canada & hopefully out again before they were caught.
Regards Victor 102

The exercises were Skyshield I and II. 8 Vulcans (4 each from 27Sq and 83Sq) penetrated US airpace. In the first game, 7 of the 8 evaded the defenders to reach the "targets". I don't remember the score in the re-match but reportedly the Vulcans could out-turn the F106s with ease during intercepts.

Aaaah, Vulcans !

The Penetrators. Total fiction, but a great read. :ok:

The yarn is in the "Did You fly the Vulcan?" thread.
Good Luck, its about 3 billion pages long.:)

My brother, who joined the RAF in '61, was told there were two raids at different times. The first involved Vulcans* (I think) trying to go in above the American radar cover and succeeding. The Americans then worked hard to improve the high coverage of their Air Defence Radars and about a year later, Victors* were sent in at low level and succeeded in penetrating BELOW the American radar cover!
I heard later from an officer at the Strike Command Bombing School at Lindholme, that Chapman Pincher, the defence journalist, was on board one of the raiders.

*Could have been the other way round; my brother told me about it over 40 years ago

Up for it!
 

I remember in the Victor B2 days before Blue Steel, we flew routine training flights between Goose Bay and Offutt. When filling out the strange flight plans at Goose and Offutt, we would include a code word that told whoever needed to know that we were up to being intercepted en - route by Canadian or USAF air defenders. They knew our routes as we flew through Radar Bomb Scoring Units on the way; however, although I was scanned a couple of times, never did anyone achieve a lock-on. But then I was usually around FL 480 so probably not surprising!!

Bless.....

Did no-one ever tell the Victor force that a fighter does not actually need to 'lock on' in order to fire a semi-active missile? Not that the ARI 18228 could have detected many of the more advanced AI modes in any case...

When I left the mighty triangle and went to the F-4, I was astonished at how ignorant we in the V-force had been with regard to fighter radar requirements and EW in general. Many of our so-called tactics would have been totally useless....:\

BEagle,
As an ex scopie,[who was involved with Vulcans "evading" USAF F4s] I was always under the impression that the Fighter had to acquire the Target if only to tell the missile just where to go....

Not quite - they told us they a fighter had to lock, but that was bolleaux.

A fighter of that era could acquire a target in search mode, it did not need to 'lock on' to acquire. Then just lock and paint the target for the few seconds the missile needed to track towards the target. No 'lock' to 'break' earlier, so energetic maneouvre wouldn't achieve much.

Some of the things we were incorrectly taught would actually have made an interceptor's task easier....:eek: We didn't even know about off-boresight firings.

One trick was to lock in the head sector and watch the result - if you saw evasion you knew the target knew. So you then went back to search, crept round the back and converted to a search stern sidewinder firing...:E

Please don't forget the Valiant - the Memsahib's Dad (RIP) was an AEO on one of the first, if not the first deployments of this fine aircraft to the USA. He recalled them step-climbing during the pond-crossing until they entered US airspace above FL500 - they had a real problem convincing US ATC of their altitude.....