Daily Telegraph Letters
 

Anyone see the very naive letter in yesterday's DT regarding low level ops? (Sorry can't find a link. Found it.....http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/m...lit/dt0301.xml) and today's equally naive letter?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/m...etRule=0#head8
Interestingly Lt Col Retd Brunt lives.....................................right under the flight path to RAF Waddington. One wonders which one was there first Brunt or the airfield?
And all the more galling in the light of this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...nafghan104.xml

Lt Col (Retd) Brunt " Pilotless future, ill-informed twaddle, blah, blah..."

Spectre150 "You, sir, are a k*ob".

Just my mature, considered $0.02 worth :ok:

Roland,

T'was ever thus!!

I remember a v. senior officer of the Dark Blue variety moving into the locality of RAF Wyton and causing a fuss - so much so that ATC had to exhort all visiting a/c 'not to overfly the village 1 1/2 miles NE of the 27 threshold' - the phone would surely ring if the pilot went anywhere near the place.

BTW I also remember the Low Level Corridors - weren't they abandoned because the populace under them were shouldering a disproportionate 'burden' of low flying when compared with other parts of the country?

One gets the impression that Mr Warren (see DT Letters) et al would be quite prepared to insist on precedence over treating the Paras in Selly Oak in order to get his 'flu jab:*

Yours disgusted,
FZ

Typical senior pongo green army understanding of air power. Also has a hint of Duncan Sandys and the 1957 Defence White Paper - 'Manned aircraft are now obsolete' - and we all know how wrong and damaging that was. Lucky for us that Lt Col Blunt is Lt Col (Retd) and therefore just another complainer amid a sea of supporters.

His comments are as well thought out as suggesting that infantry is now obsolete and should be taken up and modernised by the RAF and RN.

Bunch of arse, Sir. Stick to the gardening.:ok:

Methinks that the Lt Colon'el has scored an own goal, his letter is obviously an attempt to wind up the RAF but he has only succeeded in showing his complete ignorance and stupidity on the subject.

Well he seems to have got some of you wound up!

More 'sighing deeply at the continuing ignorance of people who perhaps ought to know better', I'd suggest...

I have always thought that all these nimbys should have their passports stamped with the words 'NOT TO FLY ABROAD - SHIP ONLY'.

Also, in the event of an accident, they should not be entitled to be picked up by air ambulances flown by ex-military pilots.

The Colonel was quite right. UAVs were the way to go when we were planning fast manouevre warfare.

UAVs could soften up the battlefield well ahead of the ground units which would then sweep forward at phenomenal speeds, compared with WWII. Unfortunately defensive warfare, or static warfare, last practiced by our cousins, is not like that.

Where the enemy comes to you, and you have danger-close, you have not got the luxury of being able to talk to someone in a warm cosy bunker hundreds or thousands of miles away ensuring that his UAV is looking at your bit of real estate.

The shorter the comms link the better. With the army resorting to direct fire from 105mm guns, I am sure they would prefer a manned aircraft dropping weapons with 100 m of their positions.

Now what was the name of the chap who bought the house tucked into the intersection of Leuchar´s two runways when they were on bolthole back in the ´80s, then started to complain when they started flying again?

The previous owners/estate agent must have seen "mug" on his forehead in big letters. "That big concrete thing over the back fence? Oh just ignore that, nothing ever happens over there"....

Well, assuming that pretty much anything is going to be faster than a horse which is probably all the Colonel was used to using in his day (until those infernal tank contraptions came along), then how else does he expect aircraft to land other than using "high-speed" low level approaches?

Or is he an advocate of the AQ school of flying - take offs and landings not a requirement ? :E

Come on, chaps, he's having a joke, and you all fell for it. Nobody could be as out of touch as he professes to be.

Mind you, he's remarkably like a number of Lt Cols I used to know.

To be fair to him, run-in and breaks may be an efficient means of recovering aircraft, but aren´t always essential. Leuchars seems to manage well enough when they´re restricted to straight in approaches to land during an Open.

Obviously Lt Col Brunt wasn't around during the battle Of Britain or indeed the years leading up to it. Those very years where the sceptics like him called for reducions on aircraft as they were simply unecessary!

To be blunt Col Brunt what is your field of expertise when it comes to the Typhoon and its Role in todays Modern Armed Forces?

C'mon fellas - it's life in a blue suit and we're used to it. Just have to bear the 'brunt'.....geddit?:}

I'll get me coat.

You have all had a good go at slating the afore mentioned gentleman but not one of you has formed an argument to counter his claims...

Is he right? should we return to the LL corridors of the 70's and 80's ?

The Main Route Low Level Corridor was established to replace the 3 Bomber Command low level routes. The route ran from near Dover clockwise round the UK to Wainfleet and Holbeach. It was about 3 miles wide and was essentially formed so that the V-bombers, with relatively poor cockpit visibility, could fly a deconflicted route. The route had a number of entry and exit points and also link routes to allow a short cut across country.

You would book in to an EP and there would then be a 10 minute interval until the next aircraft could book in. Around the route crews would try and track within 1.5 miles of the centreline and maintain timing to +/- 3 minutes. The more heavily used portions were those terminating at a bombplot. Entering in Wales would pass through Jurby for a practice attack or West Freugh for a simulated one. Further north, Gernish, near Benbecula, then Ouston, Lindholme and finally Tumby. The south coast route in to Devon bombplot was less popular.

With the demise of the Vulcan this strict regulation was not needed. For tactical aircraft it was particularly limiting.

To return to the UK LL Motorway would both annoy the people under the corridor and reduce the training value to practically nil.

Who is going to be the first one to log P1 in a Predator then?

Since this man is clearly a buffoon - absit iniuria verbis.

Is Colonel Brunt some kind of rhyming slang?

Er... is the author not a certain David Warren, Berkhamsted, Herts?

Who is Col Brunt? Since when is Herts near Waddo? I must be missing something.

Shame we do not have an OS Grid for the author's house though - we always need new target sets.