QRA query

[Tashengurt]

Without wishing to upset all those 'don't mention the war' types. Does anyone know of an instance when Northern Q nearly got into double figures during the days of the Phantom? I have a fuzzy memory of this but with age I'm beginning to doubt myself!

[Geehovah]

I always sat Southern Q but the days of Q7 launching were by no means unique! Never heard of Q10 unless you include Southern Q.

[taxydual]

Not certain about the F4 QRA days, but Leeming F3's once launched 8 on Q with double figures being attained/supplemented by a KC10, a Nimrod and a C130.

God knows how many Bears' crossed the line in a mega-formation before re-appearing from (the then) 'black hole' before splitting and spreading out to every point of the compass.

AFAIR late '80's.

As an aside, Q3 (at RS30) never managed to launch at all. Tech problems.

In the end L fits' (minus the 2,2+4) made up Q7 and Q8.

An amazing day in the Q world.

[Geehovah]

I wasn't counting the VC10/Victor/Nimrod; just F4s. The F3 days never really matched the heyday and I had a much better insight into what was going on by then.

[Saintsman]

I don't know about numbers, but I remember being on Q with 43 and the aircrew were stood down for a day because they'd flown so much. A Russian exercise I think it was. Must have been about 1976.

[glad rag]

There was a busy weekend once when they operated from the tin sheds and the ORA's....................

[Tashengurt]

Thanks all. I think it must have been '89 right at the end of the Phantoms days. I was on gate guard and was a bit stunned when some groundcrew came through and declared themselves as getting Q8 up and running and told me more would be following. I think I spent the rest of the day waiting for the hooter to go off!

[Courtney Mil]

Hmm. The Boss in the Officers' Mess bar asking guys how many beers they'd had and allocating them a Q number based on that. Probably the fewer you'd had, the lower the number, but stranger things have happened. Probably depended on how many he'd had!

[HTB]

Be thankful that the Q that other Tornados held was never launched.

Mister B

[Courtney Mil]

Very true, Mister B.

[claron]

I certainly remember in the early 80's at Wattisham. Q almost hitting double figures!

[Courtney Mil]

Not bad for Southern Q. We rarely got that sort of action.

[HTB]

I remember once winning a game of Risk while on Q at LBH (or was it Monopoly, or Scrabble?)

Mister B

[safetypee]

I recall one occasion – Leuchars Lightnings, when Q1 and Q2 were airborne, Q3-4 were being prepped coming out of the hangar, when at 0400 the TACEVAL team arrived.
The day progressed with two squadrons sitting real Q; there were more ‘Soviet’ aircraft north of the Faroe's Gap than were in all of the RAF at that time (easier to pass that today).
The TACEVAL team had a quiet day.

[Wensleydale]

I recall one occasion – Leuchars Lightnings, when Q1 and Q2 were airborne, Q3-4 were being prepped coming out of the hangar, when at 0400 the TACEVAL team arrived.
The day progressed with two squadrons sitting real Q; there were more ‘Soviet’ aircraft north of the Faroe's Gap than were in all of the RAF at that time (easier to pass that today).
The TACEVAL team had a quiet day.

QRA and TACEVAL were never good bedfellows...... At Lossie in the middle of a MAXIVAL during the early eighties, the Shackleton Ops Desk received the call from Stn Ops (other side of the airfield) to pick up a no-duff classified QRA warning signal. The Duty Crew runner duly clmbed into the Sqn Q-bus and swiftly made his way to ops with blue light flashing. Leaving ops, he was jumped by a group of "intruders" from the local territorials (it was dark). Despite the shouts of "STO STOP STOP", the Q-bus was "stolen" and the duty runner bundled into the back of a Land-Rover: he was then driven off camp and dropped off in the middle of Elgin, wearing his NBC suit complete with 9mm pistol and carrying a secret signal. Fortunately he had the presence of mind to hide the pistol under his clothing and find a phone box to call in. Fortunately the QRA scramble did not materialise, but it I understand that it was an interesting intruder debrief the day after.

[ORAC]

There was a day in the late 70s when we went well into double figures.

The Russians sent a stream of Bear Ds and fs down into thew north atlantic.

LU scrmabled the Northern QRA, followed by Southern QRA. LU then generated as many jets as they could and CY generated all their qualified crews/jets and flew them to LU to turnround and go on state. As they started running out WT generated their F6 jets and likewise forwarded deployed them to LU.

IIRC, around 10 minutes after the last possible Q jet got airborne out of LU..... the next Bear in the stream turned round and went home........

[BEagle]

QRA and TACEVAL were never good bedfellows......

Indeed. I was on Q at Wattisham once during an exercise - I think it was a MAXEVAL. In the late evening there were raised voices and polite calls of "F*** Off, we're exercise exempt!" from the groundcrew lads as someone tried to enter the Q-compound in a vehicle.

It seems that the exercise scenario had reached that point where they were supposed to pre-provision rations at various sites, including the Q-shed. OC Cats and Rats, being a sensible fellow, had realised that anything good would soon be scoffed, so he'd sent us 6 large cases.......of tinned green beans...

So the DFC shrugged his shoulders, signed for the things and told them to...."Go away!". Needless to say, the beans remained untouched.

In later, more civilised Q times on the FunBus, I recall one mixey-blob in the North Sea which consisted of a Phantom, a Lightning, a Victor and a VC10K with a pair of F-16s.....and 2 Bears enjoying the show!

[Wombat66]

I remember the absolute chaos in the WOC at Wattisham when during one exercise Neatishead frantically called for Q to scramble but gave no scramble instruction. When pressed for more info they said that CAP position was to be overhead Manston.

Stn Cdr refused to launch Q as he was convinced Neat were getting exercise inject confused with real life and they weren't helping matters by getting loud and emotional on telebrief. Matters got even worse when the next info we got from Neatishead was that an unknown aircraft was travelling at high speed across Europe and that's why we needed a CAP over SE England. Still the Staish refused to let us launch Q until he'd spoken to 11Gp. Every phone in the building was ringing, I answered the direct line from either 56/74, can't remember who was on Q, and had the duty auth asking would they be allowed to paint a red star on the jet if they shot it down

I can't remember now if we got round to launching a jet or not or indeed what caused the flap in the first place.

[Courtney Mil]

Launched on Q from 29 CGY, early 80s. Two contacts crossing the North Sea at high speed, low level. Having found them on radar we were ordered to engage! I thought that was slightly odd, but was certainly going to brighten an otherwise dull day.

I thought I'd just check and reminded Neat that we were calsign 01. They ammended that to, "Check swiches safe. Excercise Engage." Still a brave instruction.

Turns out it was a pair of Drakens inbound somewhere for the weekend. The moral of this story is think twice before you ask for an embellish.

Courtney

[M609]

In 2007, when the Russians came around the North Cape in force, for the first time in 15 years, the Norwegian Q 9 and 10 jets recovered from the north cape area to Bardufoss for hot refueling before setting off back north.
Then about 1 hr later the windows in the tower shook as i spottet Q11 and Q12 on the radar scope at FL300+ moving 'somewhat fast' for the cape, coming from Bodø.

It was a busy weekend.