RAF Antonov charter
 

Tornados from RAF Marham deploying to the Middle East on Exercise

A genuine question. Has it always been necessary for the RAF, as an expeditionary air force, to rely on a civilian contracted aircraft in order to deploy as per this article?

I had imagined that the RAF would maintain its own independent deployment capability, including heavy-lift transport etc. Is this a new thing due to cuts or has it always been the case for exercices, rather than military operations?

Indeed. The An-124 Ruslan is a frequent visitor and the 6-engined An-225 Mriya has also visited.

The Il-76 used to be reasonably common; however, as the C-17 force strength has built up, they're not often seen now.

Ukrainian actually.

DMed
 

Not always - think Ferry Command during WW2 followed by Transport Command and Air Support Command, then 38 Group.

Think Armstrong Whitworth Argosy, Short Belfast, Blackburn Beverley and currently C130, C17, Chinook etc...

But, of course, current heavy lift assets need to be beefed up by hiring in other assets when necessary.

Rgds SOS

Quite a common sight in ASI and MPA too.

http://d121tcdkpp02p4.cloudfront.net...-Ascension.jpg

And HeavyLift at Coningsby shipping F3s with the wings off to MPA.

http://www.airsceneuk.org.uk/hangar/...ouchdownsm.JPG

Heavy Lift were used during the Falklands conflict to move items down to ASI. The 'Bel Slow' was used due to its ability to take long items that would not fit into a LWB C130 that are particularly usefull to the Navy.

I have been deployed to Norway in a Norwegen C130 because the RAF was short of AT at the time.

When the Fighting First deployed to Nellis AFB in the 90s most of the kit went out in two 727 Freighters.

So no, nothing new.

No, even back in the mid-60s we used British United to deploy on a Sunspot to Malta. Bomber Command was late with its booking to Transport Command and they were fully committed.

Similarly, during the Vietnam war the US used civair to rotate troops to theatre. I think the Soviets also pressed Aeroflot in to service with their Germany troop rotations.

While most military transport services have huge capacity it is inevitably limited. It would be grossly inefficient if it had sufficient capacity to meet peak demand.

British Eagle Britannias did the regular trooping flights to the Far East until RAF VC10s took over the job c 1967/68.

Brandy sours all the way when I flew out to Singapore in 1967, ASC orange squash and coffee on the way home in 1969 :(

The US used vast amounts of civilian air transport during GW1 and 2. There's nothing new here, and as has been said, it would be wrong if always done in house. Mil AT is needed for places that civ air cannot or will not go.

And of course when our overseas air forces had their own in-theatre assets. 70 Sqn used to do practically scheduled runs around the Gulf etc.

As a slight aside from this, the RAF used to operate its own Comms Flights. In UK it was the station Annie before being brigaded in to regional comms sqn equipped with a variety of robust aircraft. As these vintage aircraft were retired they were replaced by the Bassett but clearly in smaller numbers.

Costs eventually led to the closure and mere aircrew travelling between units had to go by train. I asked one Nimrod pilot who was leaving to take up a job as an air taxi pilot how much it would cost. "The RAF couldn't afford it".

Moving on 10 years the air taxi service was used almost daily to ferry F4 and F3 crews up and down the east coast or to Warton. VIPs (down to 1*) also had call on the Squirrel as an air taxi.

I bet that has gone as a cost saver now and replaced with 2nd class rail (or posh staff car :)

You mean an Astra!

Astra? More likely to be a Corsa....

PN, don't forget 207 Sqn which, after the disposal of the largely-useless Basset and the transfer of its Pembrokes to 60 Sqn, provided a useful comms role with its Devons up until 1984.

After which the Devon was replaced by the 125. As in 'Inter City 125'.....:\

BEagle, as I was on a foreign posting at that period I was not aware of 207's role. I don't think they got as far as northern Scotland :)

There were of course the PR Pembrokes in RAFG :)

Astra, Corsa or whatever :)

Last I remember seeing was John Pack sitting in the back, a mere Air Cdre at the time, in a huge black Limousine, having his driver reverse at the main gate at Strike so that he could say hello to a couple of us from ISK.

Whilst the RN managed to retain their 'Heron' flight by buying some new Jetstream 'trainers' and then finding a reduced training requirement.

At least until a certain CAS was allegedly most dis-chuffed about being delivered on a visit in an aircraft with 'Royal Navy' plastered along the side.

Some 207 Jetstream 31s would have been nice.....

IIRC, around the time that the ex-Seeb Air Cdre had been the staish at Coningsby there was a fuss about the Captain's staff car at Yeovilton. I believe a white Omega was delivered but he wanted it in maroon so had it resprayed.

At the same time OC Cgy took delivery of a maroon one I suggested they should have swapped. :}

Senior Officers (and not so senior officers) vanity must cost the tax payer a fortune.

At least one Belfast reached Yeovilton during the Falklands war - as I drove past one day one (in Heavylift colours) was having a Sea King winched into it.

Next day a Lynx was being loaded into what looked from the rear like a Belfast painted in green / black camouflage - but as supposedly all had been mothalled except the two (?) in service with Heavylift, I ended up rather confused. It didn't look right for a C-130
Were any overseas aircraft borrowed?

All this was clearly visible from the road - they were parked between the Museum and main gate, near the water tower

Pontius N
 

Hi PN. Quite agree with your post #8, but in the 60's we weren't really an expeditionary Air Force (see o.p.). Much earlier and much later we were.

We have always used some civilian assets for ferrying troops around. I was thinking of kit.

Sorry I didn't really make myself clear.

When I was at Wyt in 73/74 I remember 26 was our Comms Sqn - ISTR they had Devons and a couple of JPs.

They had retired their Bassets after the crash at Valley and at the same time we enclaved the whole Station into AVGAS areas and AVTUR areas. Woe betide anyone who crossed the boundary!

We also had a couple of Canberra T4s most used for CT but also very useful for ferrying giant salmon from Norway just before the summer ball.

Thread drift and post drift but I remember a Canberra at Wyt caught fire on our pan during re-fuelling. Bowser was hooked up to the upwind wing, hose suffered fire damage, hence fuel and flames driven under aircraft to the downwind wing. Nasty fire. Funny thing; Huntingdon Fire Crews arrived at the scene before the Station fire crews

Sometime in the following century I had a buddy in Joint Helicopter Command who kindly organized a couple of taxi trips to Culdrose in Gazelles driven by reservists on CT.

Happy days

Rgds SOS

Milo,

I don't think the Belfast was ever seen in camoflage colours. I'm making that assumption based on the fact that the only Air Force that ever operated them was the RAF and those wold have been in Transport Command white with blue stripe.

By the time the Falklands came along, HeavyLift owned them (most of them - there were only 10 to start with) and it was theirs that we leased back in their colours.