Exchange pilots
 

There was a piece in the local news recently regarding the Mirage IV that's been donated to Elvington. It got me thinking.......were V bomber pilots and navs ever involved in foreign exchanges and vice versa......or was that limited to FJ crew?
MD

Dave: Why ever do you think that only FJ crews might have gone on exchanges? When I did my tour in the early 70s (from the Air Transport Force), there were around 120 of us in the USA from all manner of flying and ground roles - plus others in Canada, Australia and elsewhere.

Ignorance ICM.......I've just never seen any reference to exchanges relating to anyone other than FJ crew. Thanks for enlightening me.

We had a Luftwaffe fighter controller at West Drayton in the 70s, and a French AF Liaison Officer (ISTR h was FC as well) at HQ 11 Gp in the 80s. No idea how widespread the programmes are these days, of course.

Interesting point Dave. I can remember KC135 - Victor tanker exchanges but I never heard of a nuclear rolled B52 - Vulcan exchange, did that ever happen?

There was a B-52 pilot serving at Scampton during my time there in 1977-80.

The RAF Hercules fleet in my time always had several exchange pilots. 30 Sqn would always have a Luftwaffe pilot (in the earlier days even a Nav) as their exchange officer. Others would have them from the USA and Canada. Occasionally a French or Italian pilot would be on attachment but not on formal exchange.

Haven't you ever seen 'Thunderball'? Sheesh.

CG

Which squadron was he on?

I suppose a more succinct way of asking that question would be.....did we ever trust a member of another air force (with nuclear weapons) with our nuclear weapons? If I'm straying into anything sensitive....my apologies.
MD

Rotary as well - we had Australian and Canadian Chinook exchanges (one RAF pilot was killed in a Chinook crash in Australia), SAR with USCG and others, rest of SH force and CFS(H) seemed to be all over the place, with France, Germany, USAF, even more. We even had exchanges with the RN!

Ken Fitzroy, who some will remember flying some of the Fighter Collection at Duxford, was Transport Command (Hastings/Beverley and later Britannias); he did a tour in the USA SAC on KC135 tankers. 'I thought the Hastings take off was pedestrian until I discovered KC135'.

The V Force problem was Noforn and UK Eyes.

I can't talk of the 70s, but in the 60s there was a nav rad at Lindholme, George Chabeau, a very intense instructor who taught the black science of servos and transmitters.

At 1 Gp the Ops 2 position was a USAF billet and he would cover for Ops 1 for leave. However he was not cleared for Eyes or Atomic and a post, a flt lt, Ops 1a was established to cover the gap.

At STC, Ops 2 there was also SAC. When QRA finished he thought it was a shame we no longer had an practice alert exercise so, off his own bat, he introduced Exercise Edith to replace Edom. I don't know how that panned out as I departed shortly after.

In the other direction I think we might have had RAF pilots with the B52 training wing. As TO said, there were tanker exchanges.

As for trusting with nuclear weapons, I think that was the problem with UK weapons. The other issue is the employment of non-UK nationals on UK operations. The Icelandic Cod War was a case in point with exchange officers on the Nimrod being individually cleared by their respective governments; they all were IIRC.

Similar concerns applied in the FI and GW. For instance the German Government forbad play in GW 1 for NATO AWAC crews.

We had a Canadian exchange nav instructor at 2ANS at Gaydon in 1969. He went home in a blue uniform one Friday afternoon as Flight Lieutenant Yeager, RCAF and reappeared on the Monday morning in a green uniform as Captain Yeager, Canadian Defence Forces.

Theres probably been five and now six Tonka guys flying B-2A Spirit at Whiteman

RAF exchange pilot enters into the Spirit

cheers

Yes, I spent three years with the French Air Force on helicopters in the 70's - based in the Alps and around a 2 hr drive to the French Riviera!

Yep, remember our US exchange officer (on a UK air defence squadron) being asked to leave the room prior to "highly sensitive" daily briefings about how the likes of 2 para were doing...........

and also to USAF, there was an instructor pilot flying Pave Hawks with the 58th SOW at Kirtland. In the Rotorheads forum, in the Nostalgia thread theres a phoot of a Captain Phil Stinson USAF, with his Gazelle painted with 200 years of indepen

PPRuNe Forums - The Rotary Nostalgia Thread

Dont think the USCG post exists any more due to sans mil SAR now....but I could be wrong and still take SHF pilots

and of course exchange with MAWTS-1

cheers

Probably the only way to get a decent overseas posting these days... ;)

Shy - sadly the post no longer exists!