Good stuff!

Remember the Jerry ADR's going off in the rects hangers at Cott, first water ingress into the impact switches then there was the old "what's this bump here for" syndrome...

Only recently found out the old warhorse never has a thermal limit either :O

JaJ,

Were you at RSAF Tabuk for the unpleasantness in 91?

I seem to remember someone banging the tanks off, also someone having a go at AGG from a long way up.

Gaz, yes I was, but I said 1 tank! ;)

JAJ,

Was that the incident on a range detail which resulted in and LGB being kept on instead of the tank, and the TIALD failing to guide the tank to the tgt?!

JaJ

Hmm - can't remember that one. SJ trouble?

30mRad / Gaz.....nope, neither of you are correct.

It was a deliberate act.

I remain confused. Was there a 3 tank/TIALD fit? Possibly tank problem necessitating jettison?

For this particular mish, yes. Not enough airborne fuel, so we took a 3rd tank, were concerned we didn't have enough to get home so punched it as soon as as it was empty. Great feeling! Only thing I dropped during GW1, but a great feeling nonetheless!

There were some interesting fits around then. I have a photo somewhere (I'll have to find it and scan it) of an early ALARM fit. No adapters available so there's 2 on the UWG stations and the 2 small jugs UFUS. We've all heard about the Buccs at 20ft trimming down into the ground effect....only time in a GR I've felt ground effect.

How low could you really go in a GR1?

And some Bucc pilots apparently said if they went low level to the point where they were skimming the sea/ground, the aircraft would ride its own pressure wave.... Some even said you could take your hands off the stick and let it ride on it...

JP later disputed this but it sounds fooooking awesome nontheless.

You could go as low in a GR1 as you could in any aircraft. Indeed, I still hold to this day that it is easier to simply not hit the ground than it is to try to fly to an artificial 100ft that you cannot see in front of you.

From end Aug '90 to when I left for Xmas in Dec '90, we were cleared to 0ft MSD on every trip. Tragically led to the loss of a couple of good young guys but was nonetheless very interesting, especially given the lack of visual cues over much of the desert (and the rad alt was pretty much useless below ~130ft).

So the Rad Alt failed below that altitude? Likely having a senior moment here but what would you refer to then for your altitude? the HUD?

"And some Bucc pilots apparently said if they went low level to the point where they were skimming the sea/ground, the aircraft would ride its own pressure wave."
The same used to be claimed (by some) of the FRADU T22 Camberras.
One of my school pals who went on to be an apprentice with Airworks / Flight Refuelling reckoned the things followed the waves so well they needed barf bags for sea-sickness. The pressure wave supposedly followed the sea waves...

JaJ

The lightbulb went off! I was there from Nov 90 to March 91, albeit as groundcrew. Remember having to do OTR's on JP 233, 3x PW2, 8 bomb, 4 bomb, and 3 ALARM.

After the move to medium level, 3 x PW2 were used against a single HAS - not much left after that! We decided to dig trenches then, in case Iraqi Air Force thought about flying and doing the same to us!

Most startling was seeing a jet come back with the JP 233 front bit (full of AP nasties) still on. Until one of our brave armourers, just booted the thing off and lobbed it in the bondu!

All that and not a lot of booze!

Jackaroo747

For that kind of extreme low flying you are not relying on ANY instruments - it’s purely an eyeball exercise. You just fly as low as you can without hitting the ground. Flying in a straight line is pretty straightforward - it’s the turns that cause the problems. You have to climb a little bit every time the bank goes on to avoid digging in the wingtip.

In my experience the HUD just gets in the way of a clear view forward, even in a single-seater. A good Head –Down compass display (Like we had in the Hunter FR10), just below sightline is fine for heading-keeping. I was never very impressed with the Tornado’s double combining-glass HUD, which made forward view even more difficult when it got a bit dusty.

Seen and flown against (F3 rather than GR1) many buccs flying 20 ft-ish oversea on fleet exercises and beat-ups of Gib, etc. They seemed very happy down there. Agree with the points about HUDs getting in the way, especially supersonic and with salty windscreens. Don't have the experience to comment on ground effect in Tornado.

Aye Pinkfin, that's the one. :ok:

edit: just looked at the rest of the photos in the link. Brought back a few good memories there m8. I presume they're taken by you, in which case.....Hi m8, not seen you in many years! I have the first photo on my wall at home. :ok:

Gaz ED

I think I can lay claim to the tanks being jettisoned on night 1, along with 2xJP233 after running through the target (Al Taqaddum) and not getting a release!

Likewise, my driver elected to do about 75º strafe from abt 25,000ft against, possibly Ruwayshid or one of the H airfields, memory growing dim - must dig out the logbook. Strafe done as it was the last opportunity befeore re-roling into TIALD spiking where strafe was prohibited.

Must have dropped more than a dozen u/fus tanks during transits before using TIALD sausage side. BTW, towards the end, I seem to remember the saints SENGO asking for the tanks to be thrown away as the groundcrew had chopped up the transit crates for firewood :ok:

Pinkfin - Good piccies - seem to remember pusing the TF envelope by trying to TF over some of those ridges :sad:

Smash Bugger - nice vid - a lot taken by my good self!

I can remember one of our bay support (Klingons) getting a jolly at Deci and when the pilot told him to press "Selective jettison" it was actually set at "Jettison all"
Apparently all the pilot said on the way home was "Oh F**K, Oh F**k".
Jollys stopped immediately and our hero "Cpl Kev Norman" :8 ended up being called "Napalm Norman" for the rest of his career I imagine
:O:O
:D

Smash B
We were shown some of these videos by one of our 31 Sqn aircrew at Dhahran during one of the briefing sessions
He stopped it where the shadow was closest and compared it with the A/C dimensions, this proved it was quite low :eek:
Good memories :D