F-4s & Hawks in the Air Defence role

[jindabyne]

And as for those night PI's in the Hunter - which many a WIWOL cut his teeth on!

[Chairborne 09.00hrs]

Originally Posted by Davef68

On a similar note, did the 360 Canberras have a war role?

Dave,


I was told Comms Jamming by one of their aircrew when chatting at their retirement photocall.

[Dominator2]

I believe it was a project for a QWI course. Maybe spring 81, maybe earlier. The studes did the pitch. Anything non-pulse doppler (e.g. Lightning) topping up an F-4 force that was a bit thin on availability.
The Hawk involvement: the Next Great Idea by some neddy at 11 Gp.
About ten years before an IWI course had proposed AiM-9s for the Lightning. Rejected as the aircraft would be out of service within 5 years.

As mentioned previously, the MFF concept originated in 2ATAF in the late 70s. It was briefed at TLP when at Furstenfeldbruch and employed airborne once TLP moved to Jever as a flying course.

In the UK the concept was used with the F4 and the Hunter reasonably successfully. With the end of the Hunter the Hawk was introduced to replace it. Very quickly it was evident to most that the Hawks poorer performance made it less complimentary to the concept.

The ideas that were evolved in those years were paramount to be able to counter the threat at the time when both in the Central Region and the UK we were severely outnumbered.