'The largest fighter in the world'

Still got the zap somewhere - many fun times in and with Nimrods but perhaps none so much as when conducting fighter affil in the 80's.

Hanging upside down in the beam window with a cricked neck and boots climbing up the nav crate to keep eyes on the threat. Dirty dives down to MOA, lots of manoeuvre followed by the growl and Fox 2 as yet another F4 mate's ego fell victim to the Mighty Hunter's 9L . We'd celebrate with a curry / honkers / DCS and doughnut before doing a bit of ASW, matey boy retired hurt :ouch:

It wasn't all one way traffic though. Phantom dude came up from Leuchars to brief the Sqn on tactics. After an hours animated lecture, he convinced us we stood a pretty good chance against his ilk. We all had a rosy glow.

'Any Q's?' 'Yes, prat at the back'

'Err, it's all sounding very positive, but you've only talked about 1 v 1......... what happens if there's 2 of you?'

'Well, you're f***** mate - sorry!'

Queensberry rules? Pah!

Eyewitness account
 

It was about 2 to 3 miles distance in our eleven o'clock position in a left hand banked turn, probably 1000 feet above. We were both good VMC. He rolled out ahead of us and we gave chase for a short while. A 707 can run faster than the old Nimrod, and with our Mach horn sounding .77/78 and us pushing the nose down, we realised that the chase was over and watched him disappear towards the Argie coast. No sea Harriers around, and no missiles at that time on the Nimrod, so he lived to fight another day. Only another 7 hours flight back to Ascension!!!

Eyewitness Account 2
 

Well there were, but they were all on the decks of Invincible and Hermes. And given the state of maritime comms in the early 80's, despite our broadcasts on every briefed frequency, that is where they stayed. Our HF transmissions were received back at ASI, and by elements of the Task Force further south. But not on the carriers.

As I remember the sighting (perhaps the same one that Faldo mentions, perhaps not - though I only ever heard of one that was this close) the 707 approached from the 3 o'clock and made a right turn onto the same track as us but a few miles ahead - which is certainly where he stayed.

But it was certainly VMC and both aircraft were aware of the presence of the other.