One wonders if the red star and portcullis tie is still in existence?

What has the American done to deserve being the meat in a crab sandwich?;)

Exactly like that, MSOCS, only easier. Oh, or maybe that was a scoff? Why? It's just a UK QRA thing. Bet you've got an AV8 badge.

Is there any such thing as a Guide badge for sewing: https://www.girlguiding.org.uk/guide...ges/index.html ? I don't see one listed.

Whereas there certainly is a 10 Bear badge.

My final score was 28 x Bear plus 2 x Fulcrum - I don't count the Bear 'H' we once encountered in mid-Atlantic.....

Are 10 Bear ties still available?

Not a fly boy myself but have supported or been the Master Controller for many QRA scrambles in UK, Falklands and Norway since 1985. My best was, whilst on a tour in northern Norway, MCing the intercepts of 10 Ruskies on an ADEX in the very North Norwegian Sea with 1 F16 which included a super quick turn around at Banak then north again to get the Mainstay on it's way in. I also have the Argie 707 from darn south:)

So you shot them with a camera........

I think it's good. A rare bit of morale these days.

Is there any such thing as a Guide badge for sewing: https://www.girlguiding.org.uk/guide...ges/index.html ? I don't see one listed. - BEagle

I can hardly believe that I actually looked at the link, but the "Outdoor Pursuits" badge may be more appropriate.....:hmm:

Jack

On the subject of the MAY...

I remember in the South Atlantic a crew (both sadly no longer with us due to seperate CFIT accidents) excitedly ID'd a bogey off of the Falklands as "It's a COOT, no, no, it's a MAY..". Only to be told that the 'locals' had an Electra that they used for snooping about in as briefed in the standard intel pack up for the local theatre of ops brief. Oh, how we laughed at them in the bar that evening!

LJ

For MSOCS, MGD and others persisting down the guides badge route, it is worth remembering that for many years the QRA task could only be discharged with significant risk to the crews. The WIWOL mates and Leuchars F4s operated without the benefit of an INS or an HF radio, often outside radar cover, and at a range where SAR was unlikely to find you, never mind reach you before hypothermia set in (assuming the sea state let you get in the dinghy in the first place). So a simple fire or double PC failure was likely to prove terminal. :) And as Ali Q pointed out, the other trick was to try to wipe you off into the sea on the inside of a descending turn. It was the no IN/HF combination that led to a Tremblers crew hitting a tanker 200nm from land, with the low fuel light on, and minus the tanks and missiles they had to jettison just to reach the tanker. Saved by a US AWACS, but it did generate a good song!

Apart from that, the most difficult bit was managing to stay awake on the way home after the 0200 no-notice launch.

Why no HF? Seems a bit mean if you're going to be stooging about so far from home, and there's always the chance you'll spot something that may be of immediate interest to others.

But the point is shipmate that it's a badge! You can award a badge for anything you like and - by and large - it'll mean a lot to you and your community and not that much beyond.

I'm forever grateful to what the boys and girls standing Q over the years have done...and at some point someone's decided that 10 Bears is worth recording. That's great - a line in the sand that you are either over, or not. You either wear the badge...or you don't.

I don't think there's any need to have a go at the chaps for having or producing it...as with every award from the 100m dash certificate at school sports day all the way to the VC...only the chaps who wear it know what they did, how it went and what it means.

I'm willing to bet a couple of people thinking ill of this have 'thousand hour' badges or similar in their possession...similar idea, surely? A milestone that some pass, some don't. Simple as that.

But in all seriousness - is the middle fellow American or not?

Just a quick question...

If the badge is, by definition, for intercepting 10 Bears, why does it need the number 10 on it? The original, as shown by CM in post 6, had no such number.

Is this badge intended as part of a series, with the 20, 30, 40 Bear badges to follow in due course?

We in this country have a tradition of awarding bars to medals, whereas the Soviets (and I assume the post Soviet Russians) awarded another medal, which is why Russian generals ended up looking like Christmas trees. For example, I've got a WW2 group to a Red Army sergeant which includes three Medals for Bravery, mounted in a row.

On that principle, do you think there are Russian Bear crewmen who have flying suits plastered with 10, 20 or 30 Tornado and Typhoon badges (and even some oldies with a few faded F4 badges)? ;)

Fortissimo - not sure what these guys would be doing out of touch with their tanker, equipped as it was with both HF and navigator(s)!

Fortissimo #30 & TTN #3

Ref the Tremblers F4 in a spot of bother. We were the Tansor crew that rescued them. We had just finished refelling Q2 off the NW Irish coast, whilst shadowing a Bear, when we were asked by Benbecula if we could help a " Slow Gin " (USAF F4 from Iceland) that was short of fuel. We told them that we were unable to refuel USAF F4s as the systems were not compatible, but offered out services to assist if we were able. Asked to vector NW to assist, which we did.

It transpired that Q1, who was without Tanker support, had been shadowing another Bear and been briefed to stay to PLE and then divert to Keflavik. They had assumed that the Bear was en-route to Cuba, but it was actually heading for the Bay of Biscay. On leaving the Bear to go to Keflavik they found that they were a long way South of where they thought they were and had no chance or getting to Keflavik. Remember they had no INS.
They headed towards Stornoway with no hope of getting there either, but with the tailwind they would be nearer to land than if they went North.

After vectors from the USAF AWACS we met them with an RV D about 250nm West of Stornaway. They took 14,000lbs fuel, which IIRC is the total fuel contents of a (by now) clean F4.

I was called into Ops the next morning at 0200 to talk to the B of E, who gave me the story from the F4 end. Mrs TT was most impressed (not). Still waiting for the thank you letter.

Wensleydale #21 Still got my tie, don't know if they are still available.

Following on from Fortissimo and TT's earlier posts - and apologies for a spot of thread/navigational drift - but not long afterwards, a 43 Sqn crew fell into a similar trap to the unfortunate Tremblers QRA crew. Well out of TACAN range and with only the hamster-driven air position indicator (on a good day it had a 50% chance of telling you correctly which hemisphere you were in) to rely on, the chaps began their RTB to Leuchars only to find upon turning south east that someone had pinched Scotland.

A PAN, quickly updated to MAYDAY later and our trusty crew, with only fumes in the tanks, landed in... ahem, Denmark (Karup, I think). Names of the guilty redacted to save embarrassment!

And just as a PS to TT's post, a clean F4 holds 13,200 lbs of fuel, so even allowing for the burn rate while tanking, taking on 14,000 lbs shows how close the Tremblers ac was to the hasn't-it-all-gone-quiet stage.

Thanks for the explanations guys - all very hairy. Nothing to do with Bear hunting, but I remember taking a Bucc up to about 69N on something called Gambeson (Soviet ship watching, I think) and casting them off after a final top-up to continue their way North, as we turned South to RTB. I remember how lonely that singleton looked disappearing into the twilight surrounded by hundreds of miles of bugger all.

CM,

It wasn't so much a scoff than a bit of banter chap.

I don't have problems with badges. We've all got a load of various designs in our ego boxes I'm sure.

And yes, I do have an "AV8" badge. I don't have one for 10 hovers followed by a picture and a statement saying this is the first 10 hover badge someone's achieved in 25 years, but I think I'm onto something there. I'll see what the skipper says next week.

Just banter, signposted for clarity.

No IN puts in to context one of our Q.

One F4, one Victor, one Shack, were positioned well north of Saxa on the boundary about 24 hours late.

Saxa retained control so I was delegated to watch only.

The F4 had a low contact well north that was a suspect vessel and were given permission to identify. They went down and found a Noggie Hooked. They then set off back to the tanker but still dark to Saxa.

Watching, I could see they were set to pass some 50 miles east of the tanker and opening. I asked if they were happy. The tanker had to relay and the F4 said "happy about what?"

The Victor replied, your position viz a viz me.

Bored F4, well where does he think you are? I called the vector followed by a request for more help.

Over the years we were incredibly lucky not to lose a Q aircraft.

To respond to a couple of posts.

SLF,

The Northern Q jets were FG1s, which were the Navy models - not all of them were ex-Navy, though. As such they didn't have things that didn't go well with ships in those days. So, no INAS, which needed to be pretty much stationary to align, no internal battery (maybe acid was too nasty for sailors), no HF (I don't know, but maybe the aircraft weren't supposed to go that far from the ship).

Joking aside, Leuchars ended up with the jets that did most of the QRA work, way out of range of land-based nav aids and comms, without a decent internal nav system and without the long-range radio. Just the way it happened, I suppose.

Biggus,

Yes, you are right. The picture there is the design of the Bear. The actual badge has a "10" in black in the middle of the bear's chest. There was never any intention to make any further badges in a series.

MSOCS,

Yes, I get that. Thanks.

AQ,

Yes, the API hamster wheel was bloody awful, especially as we all trained on a jet with the INAS. If you nurtured it and didn't go and do a lot of manoeuvring it would keep a reasonable PP. I think we've probably all had days when we were surprised by the way it could drift, but I believe that it could keep us in the ball park, as long as we looked after it. In the cases mentioned here, a little MDR may not have gone amiss. Maybe a discussion for early next month?

PN,

Yes, I think we were very lucky not to lose a Q jet in those days. For more reasons than just the nav kit.