25 Years on Ops
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Leicestershire, England
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It could be that ZG750 is due to be RTP'd/wfu soon, several previous 'specials', ZA398/405/461/492/564, ZD748 and ZG750 all suffered this fate. I suppose the reason being not having a jet with plenty of hours left on it/latest mod state, potentially being not suitable for ops because of a 'lurid' colour scheme!
-RP
-RP
It probably says more about the frequency of recent combat ops that DESERT FOX was missed from the list. We've had so many that it must have been lost in the noise. It was an interesting run-up to that particular Christmas nonetheless….
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: London
Age: 50
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The list of other smaller ops wouldn't fit on the fin... Op Driver in 94 saw extra jets to the Gulf for example but arguably part of Jural. Same for Desert Fox being part of Bolton I venture. Of course Desert Fox stands out as it was entirely kinetic and a seismic shift in the nature of the no fly zones thereafter. I remember the next squadron after 12 (B) overtook the number of weapons dropped on desert fox... And got the new CAS his DFC...
Desert Fox isn't on there for the same reason that Desert Shield / Storm and ONW / OSW are not, being that they are US Military codenames for the operations which have a British operation codename already on the rudder.
The unusual aspect of that particular op is that the UK op order did indeed use the US codename rather than a UK-specific name. Of course, some of the ac were already deployed under a UK op codeword, but those rushed into support (eg ISTAR) did not.
It was an interesting time and the sudden curtailment of kinetic action equally so.
It was an interesting time and the sudden curtailment of kinetic action equally so.