Airliner intercept for training?
I remember well a sortie against Concorde from Wattisham! in a Mk6 Lightning. Initially a head on supersonic to fire Red Top Missile acquired and for real would have been fired! Then converted to a stern attack! Very critical profile and I remember rolling out to see the target disappearing into the wide blue yonder! Pulled up for height and started the glide back to base! Can’t remember heights/ speeds etc but landed above minimums! An interesting experience!
Oh the target I believe was contracted to the MOD and contained no passengers.
Oh the target I believe was contracted to the MOD and contained no passengers.
Last edited by newt; 6th Nov 2019 at 16:42.
I was flying Air France between Paris and Madrid some 15 years ago, when I just happened to look out of the window and a bright orange aircraft (Alphajet?) flew within 50 feet, left to right and over the top of us. A blink and you miss it event.
I did speak to the Captain, who was totally unaware.
I did speak to the Captain, who was totally unaware.
Ex Priory v Concorde and Mirage IV
ORAC
Good post on a fantasy thread. But the mystery F3 Lightning pilot was DF. He'd taken a stern shot but was determined to get some "guns film" and was prepared to divert to Colt to get it. He did not suffer a radio failure, the Lightning seldom did. In fact Colt gave him a sit-in turn around and had him back on cap within 30mins.
NEWT
Good luck with the new keyboard.
"Newt, downwind exclamation mark".......
"Sorry that should be: downwind full stop"
Good post on a fantasy thread. But the mystery F3 Lightning pilot was DF. He'd taken a stern shot but was determined to get some "guns film" and was prepared to divert to Colt to get it. He did not suffer a radio failure, the Lightning seldom did. In fact Colt gave him a sit-in turn around and had him back on cap within 30mins.
NEWT
Good luck with the new keyboard.
"Newt, downwind exclamation mark".......
"Sorry that should be: downwind full stop"
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Minnie, you are confusing two separate occasions.
The radio failure was a BK Ltg intercepting Concorde. The WT Ltg intercept and diversion I discussed was intercepting a FAF Mirage IV several years previously.
The radio failure was a BK Ltg intercepting Concorde. The WT Ltg intercept and diversion I discussed was intercepting a FAF Mirage IV several years previously.
Back in the late 60’s it was extremely unlikely that any armed (QRA) aircraft would intercept a civil aircraft excepting ‘the unidentified’. One notable quip was a real QRA against an unknown incoming; the ident was broadcast as an MD80, to which the ground reply was ‘how do you know that’ - “ because it’s written on the side of the aircraft” !
There were also some no-notice QRA flights - often unidentified returning ELINT, no dip clearance etc. More often these were terminated as ‘we now have identification, rtb’, or rarely after ident (coded broadcast), the type was not to be disclosed.
There were also some no-notice QRA flights - often unidentified returning ELINT, no dip clearance etc. More often these were terminated as ‘we now have identification, rtb’, or rarely after ident (coded broadcast), the type was not to be disclosed.
Last edited by safetypee; 3rd Nov 2019 at 16:54.
I remember well a sortie against Concorde from Wattisham! in a Mk6 Lightning. Initially a head on supersonic to fire Red Top Missile acquired and for real would have been fired! Then converted to a stern attack! Very critical profile and I remember rolling out to see the target disappearing into the wide blue yonder! Pulled up for height and started the glide back to base! Can’t remember heights/ speeds etc but landed above minimums! An interesting experience!
Oh the target I believe was contracted to the MOD and contained no passengers!
Oh the target I believe was contracted to the MOD and contained no passengers!
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Concorde did many of its supersonic trial flights during 1975/1976 under control of the UKADGE. They didn’t want to have frequent frequency changes and we set up a common frequency shared by Neatishead, Boulmer, Buchan, Saxa Vord and Benbecula.
Concorde would be handed over to Neatishead coating out over East Anglia and be cleared to climb and go high speed heading north and would then be handed from controller to controller as they flew a large loop north of Sax and then back down the Irish Sea. I never saw or controlled anyone trying an intercept against them, but it is possible.
I did control one flight in a weekend when Boulmer wasn’t manned and the controller at Buchan had a U/S radio, so they called the Saxa controller to their Ops room - and all the time Concorde was heading north at 20nm a minute. I eventually handed them over just about abeam Aberdeen - I was just thankful they were at FL600.
I remember the first such trial, which was controlled by one of the old Warrant Officer controllers. The crew had been told to call Neatishead and obviously knew nothing about the names and locations of the AD radar sites as, after they checked and were cleared to accelerate they asked him to spell Neatishead and then when quiet for a couple of minutes as they tried, and failed, to find it on their flight documents. They then asked him for our location and, gleefully echoing the words of the FC recruiting film of the day, solemnly replied we were, “An Air Defence radar site, somewhere on the east coast of England”.....
Concorde would be handed over to Neatishead coating out over East Anglia and be cleared to climb and go high speed heading north and would then be handed from controller to controller as they flew a large loop north of Sax and then back down the Irish Sea. I never saw or controlled anyone trying an intercept against them, but it is possible.
I did control one flight in a weekend when Boulmer wasn’t manned and the controller at Buchan had a U/S radio, so they called the Saxa controller to their Ops room - and all the time Concorde was heading north at 20nm a minute. I eventually handed them over just about abeam Aberdeen - I was just thankful they were at FL600.
I remember the first such trial, which was controlled by one of the old Warrant Officer controllers. The crew had been told to call Neatishead and obviously knew nothing about the names and locations of the AD radar sites as, after they checked and were cleared to accelerate they asked him to spell Neatishead and then when quiet for a couple of minutes as they tried, and failed, to find it on their flight documents. They then asked him for our location and, gleefully echoing the words of the FC recruiting film of the day, solemnly replied we were, “An Air Defence radar site, somewhere on the east coast of England”.....
Last edited by ORAC; 3rd Nov 2019 at 20:46.
ORAC wrote:
F-4s from pre-pongo Wattisham intercepted the AirUK 'Norwich flyer' on many occasions. Which when 'Bondage' and I were on the way home from yet another boring JMC debrief in the early '80s was rather embarrassing as we were in the AirUK F-27 and were intercepted by an F-4 from our own squadron. But the delightful CC were feeding us with large G&Ts at the time and though it all rather amusing...
Back in the 1970s Air Anglia in and out of Norwich we’re outraged if they weren't intercepted - it was one reason many flew with them.
"Mildly" Eccentric Stardriver
Not an intercept, but operating the F27 Norwich to Humberside we frequently found ourselves occupying the same airspace as the FJ people. I recall one day being told by the controller "the best avoiding action I can give you is a 360 degree turn"
A Lightning F3 managed to make a stern intercept on a Concorde over the North Sea on 2nd April 1985 at Mach 2.2 at 57,000 feet. The pilot Mike Hale has written about it and the claim is backed up by an entry in the 11 Squadron ORB for that month. The fighter controller who set up the intercept is mentioned in the RAF Boulmer ORB. plus the fact that Boulmer controlled two Concorde v Lightning sorties that month. One interesting note in the Boulmer ORB is the route of the Concorde on the Hale Sortie. Moscow to Edinburgh. G-BOAC definitely landed at Edinburgh that day according to a spotters website and a Concorde did do a charter flight with passengers to Moscow on the 12th April 1985, so I suspect BA did do a trial flight to Moscow first. It would be interesting to know what the Concorde's route was.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Well to reach the speed I would have thought it must have gone north and coasted out around the Kola peninsula, did a supersonic flight down the Norwegian Sea into the North Sea before decelerating and turning right to land at Edinburgh. Boulmer would have down the intercept they did all the BK high flying intercepts. I presume the F3 would held and come off a tanker in TTL 5 or 6.
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Things don't always go as planned. Airborne from Coningsby with a Flt Cdr nav in the back, to to be honest not the sharpest tool in the rack. Brief was for a bog standard head on Fox 1 with stern conversion. Good long range pick up to F1, as we began the stern conversion I suggested he looked out at the DC 9 we had just splashed.
