QRA question

[APG63]

Green Flash,

It was on a very dark, winter's night in 1987. We were scrambled at about 3 a.m. from cold (fast asleep). Q1 went u/s on start with radar problems so my nav and I got airborne as Q2. Unusualy, we we vectored northeast - it was more usual to be sent up to the 'Gap'. Anyway, we imagined we were probably after something from Iceland - The Sloe Gins, as they were known.

We were held on CAP for about an hour after the contact faded from Saxa. We were told that a a tanker was on its way and we were to endure as Q1 was off state. We filled to full at least three times and we were starting to see the first glimpse of dawn when we were vectored north with some urgency.

To cut a long story shortish, we had a very difficult intercept against an intermittent contact which, frankly was all over the place. Eventually we closed to VID the target only to find a large dish-shaped craft surrounded by green light.

None of our photographs came out and we were told never to tell the story.

[trap one]

ORAC.
My appologies mean't the 200ft bubble for Military traffic either under Civil or Military Control. The Civy jets were not intercepted as you said but were co-ordinated with the 1000ft or 2000ft separation. Real intercepts on civies were not un-common post 911. Also the rules got relaxed slightly so that you could intercept Civy AC that were under contract to the MOD, such as FRA etc.

[Lima Juliet]

Strangest thing? Sssshhh!

[Four Types]

Strangest QRA Intercept

Way back when I was on a F4s an old Lightning pilot once recalled how he had been launched on QRA in 8/8ths clag sea level to God.....He picked up the contact, stern conversion and closed in for a Phase 3 VID from above. As he approached min range he could eventually make out a Delta winged aircraft, a little bigger than his own with NO COCKPIT!!.....he could see enough to close even further. After a period of bafflement the cloud eventually cleared enough for him to see that he had actually done a VID on the High-T tail of a VC10!!!!....One to tell the grandchildren!!

[Courtney Mil]

I like that, FT. Presumably the rest of the VC10 was there too?

[Pontius Navigator]

CM, our nav course commander related a tale from a VID in the 50s. He talked Biggles in on the radar and eventually got in to a couple of hundred feet. Biggles then told him to look out to the right. There was a nav light well distant and nowhere near where he said the target was.

Biggles then said look left, there was another nav light equidistant the other side. Confused . . .

Now look up he said.

They were tucked in very close to a B36.

PS, I think the tail was behind the meatbox cockpit.

[Courtney Mil]

Nice one, PN. That was one HUGE aircraft. I hate to think where the back end was relative to the interceptor.

OK, strangest thing ever intercepted. Well this isn't, but it was certainly a surprise to us. My nav and I on QRA, early 80s, F4. Way, way north, talking to Saxa (I think) at night (as bloody usual). We closed on a Bear F (it had already been identified my the Noggies, but wanted our go too).

During the VID, we had one or two unusual range glitches, so stabilized, broke lock, relocked and pressed on in. Way beyond mininmum range we hit a load of buffet and, to cut a long story short, stabilized again. Radar lock started to show well inside min range, break X, etc. In the gloom I could just make out the shape of an aircraft. After a minute or so we identified one Comet derivative.

We were stalking the stalker, not the Bear. That could have been very nasty.

[Pontius Navigator]

CM,

You again remind me.

One clear day in the Shack we were up in the Gap doing not a lot. It had been busy the day before but it did take us a long time to get there. There was a singleton X-ray but a long long way south for a Coot. Anyway we were given the F4 to do a VID.

The intercept went well but before the F4 could close he called bingo and rtb. *&^%

We got permission from Buchan for him to go to Kef. It was outside his single engine range. We got him permission to go to Oerland. Ditto. Kinloss. Ditto. Eventually, frustrated, we let him go thinking all sorts of things.

Later, hours later, we were coasting in on the north coast when this chap calls Scottish for the ISK weather. The weather is duly passed and a frequency change for ISK Approach is passed. "Why would I want ISK approach? I am continuing south."

Yup, same as your story. Why did they never come up with a warning system?

[Courtney Mil]

Couldn't agree more, my friend. We could have killed each other (I mean fighter crew and airliner crew) and could easily have compromised them. Too much secret squirrel can be bad for the health. I wonder whose side they though you and I were on?