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RAF Escort plane to Stansted (merged)

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RAF Escort plane to Stansted (merged)

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Old 27th Sep 2004, 12:15
  #21 (permalink)  
 
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Lyneham, perhaps? At worst, you'd put Swindon in danger......
St Mawgan?
Kinloss?
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Old 27th Sep 2004, 14:26
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Honington? Still usable, plenty of rocks to provide security and close to Stansted. Are Bentwaters or Woodbridge still available?
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Old 27th Sep 2004, 14:54
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I think Bentwaters has been dug up, but Woodbridge is still 'there'.

I know that Stansted is the airport of choice in the UK for diversions relating to Bombs/Hijacks. But when did this come into effect and what airport was on the menu before Stansted?
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Old 27th Sep 2004, 15:54
  #24 (permalink)  
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Let's just say that Stansted is near London and jet intending to terminate there might not have the fuel to find the Mull of Kintyre.

On a different tack, when did the AD guys adopt Maritime missions? The DT said their mission was detect, deter, destroy. OK, nice and snappy but there wasn't much need for detection.

Now intercept, identify an dif hostile! now that has a nice round ring to it. I wonder why they didn't think of that.
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Old 27th Sep 2004, 16:42
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Pontious, I was under the impression that the flight was routing route from Athens to New York, so why would it not have had enough fuel to go to the Mull of Kintyre?

That aside, I am not advocating something that already exists.
I am talking about a remote airfield that is secure. Not open to the public. Far from any populous areas.
As has been pointed out, the occurrences for which it would be used are rare.
The nature of the facility would be for bomb laden airliners (the origin of this thread) coming to land or explode on approach over the sea, or, for ‘terrorist controlled aircraft’ to land and stay on the apron until they released the hostages or faced the consequences.
It would not necessarily need 24/ 7 ATC, fire cover, medical cover etc.
It would be need minimal accommodation and associated facilities.
Considering the expense of losing a major UK airport and the disruption it would cause to the Airlines (apart from vaporising a large part of Essex – the case in point!).
I think (risk mitigation) such a facility would make a great deal of sense and need not be too expensive to build and maintain.
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Old 27th Sep 2004, 16:48
  #26 (permalink)  
 
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<<
I know that Stansted is the airport of choice in the UK for diversions relating to Bombs/Hijacks. But when did this come into effect and what airport was on the menu before Stansted?
>>

I guess since at least the 1970s, certainly since the British Airways One-Eleven ended up there in 1975 when it was hijacked ex- MAN, I think, for LHR. This was the only domestic hijack in Britain and the hijackers were said to have been told that they were landing in Paris (which is where they wanted to go) when it was really STN - so to my knowledge STN has had this function for at least that long.
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Old 27th Sep 2004, 16:54
  #27 (permalink)  
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I'dve thought that the most important thing for the fighters to do would be to make absolutely sure that the civil aircraft got nowhere near a nuclear power station (something that might be more tricky if you ask it to divert to some distant rural location).

I've seen some apparently reasonable hazard analyses of 767 strikes on the Sellafield reprocessing waste containment vessels that have fatalities over time in the millions. Even if you disagree strongly with any particular analysis, this has to be the worst case scenario - anything is preferable, and at almost any cost.

R
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Old 27th Sep 2004, 17:00
  #28 (permalink)  
 
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Heard a while back that Manchester was to become the designated airfield. Dual runway ops with the subject ac landing on 24L and being parked in the loop at the end. In the middle of the Cheshire countryside, with a fire station close by.
Also the advantage that the airfield can continue to operate on single rwy ops if 24L did get blocked.

IIRC a PIA 747 with a suspect device did just this a year or two ago.
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Old 27th Sep 2004, 17:45
  #29 (permalink)  
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Mike Jennvy and Wigan Warrier, you both missed the point. I was not suggesting that THIS aircraft could not reach Machrihanish. If I recall correctly, the question was which airfield should be used in the FUTURE instead of Stansted.

Most of the other names muted for the Olympic aircraft were probably shut - Woodbridge, Honington etc.

My point is that Stansted is the PLANNED destination for any forced divert and the counter question was should this be so.

I was therefore suggesting that its proximity to LHR was significant for any diversion. Certainly a diversion to Machrihanish for a short or medium range passenger jet is probably too far. Remember the odd charter jets with barely enough fuel for planned, let alone diversion, airfield.

Mike, see yr PM.
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Old 27th Sep 2004, 18:11
  #30 (permalink)  
 
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Manston? Or London(Manston) or whatever it's called nowadays?
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Old 27th Sep 2004, 19:32
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As nuclear power stations are dotted all over our island it would be best to keep rogue Aircraft well away from our shores in the first place (Stanstead is less than 60 miles from Sizewell).
My sentiment is to send rogue aircraft to somewhere where the risk to people and property (especially nuclear power stations) is minimised. If, because of fuel constraints, the rogue jet couldn’t make it there, then so be it.
I think it is a tad silly to send a jet with bags of fuel and a (supposed) bomb onboard into Stanstead. However, I appreciate that, as Stanstead was nominated for such duty that’s where it had to go.
I live nowhere near Essex and couldn’t give a toss for the local Chavs, in fact, I take back all I have said – lets keep the danger down South…..the nearer London the better.
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Old 27th Sep 2004, 19:36
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My sentiment is to send rogue aircraft to somewhere where the risk to people and property (especially nuclear power stations) is minimised.

Machrihanish?



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Old 27th Sep 2004, 21:39
  #33 (permalink)  
 
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A few photos of the QRA landing back at Coningsby,







Great job guys, Well done to all involved!
Regards, Steve
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Old 28th Sep 2004, 09:55
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Nice one boys! Its a shame NineLima couldnt get his pics to the BBC so they didnt post pictures of us GR4 boys 'doing Q' - perish the thought. A job well done to the F3 force - glad you got to keep your death dart on the rails though!

Top work

Strength and Honour

SW
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Old 28th Sep 2004, 11:07
  #35 (permalink)  
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I see they are still lugging Skyflash around. I thought AMRAAM was standard fit these days?

Well done chaps btw.
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Old 28th Sep 2004, 12:27
  #36 (permalink)  
 
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too far

Manston? Or London(Manston) or whatever it's called nowadays?
Transport links are awful to that part of the world. It would take SF days to get there by road - obv. they'd fly in though.

And if you send them that close to france, you might as well hand the plane over to the froggies and let them deal with it!

The runway is bloody long though. I'd have loved to have towed the VGS kit onto the runway for a launch!
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Old 28th Sep 2004, 14:41
  #37 (permalink)  
 
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With an A340 probably cruising at M0.83 (ish), maybe FL340-360 coming west out of Athens, would the F3s with external tanks stand any chance of getting up there or even be fast enough to 'escort', or would they have to wait until the 340 descended before the 'escort' could commence?
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Old 28th Sep 2004, 14:44
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I doubt if the tanks would interfere too much with the task - they are drop tanks even if it does cause a lot of questions when one drops them.
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Old 28th Sep 2004, 16:04
  #39 (permalink)  
 
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And another!

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0...153385,00.html

Another Greek airliner with a bomb threat attached is currently on its way to Shannon, according to the above...
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Old 28th Sep 2004, 16:21
  #40 (permalink)  
 
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Should we really be talking about the operational capabilities of our a/c in an open forum? If they dont know the facts why help them by passing the details out on here!

Maybe its time for Mr Mod to come in and either close or restrict the info posted.
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