JP Low Level Sqn at Finningley
 

Could anyone explain the purpose of this unit and the timescale of it's existence. It was referred to recently in another thread and raised my interest.

What was the units official description?

From at least 1973 to about 1993 ish (Replaced by Hawks). Part of the Nav School fleet providing FJ low level 2 seat training to student navs. Known variously as “JP Sqn” and later LLADTS ( Low Level and Air Defence Training Sqn) part of 6 FTS.

All nav students completed the Basic JP course following the Basic Dominie Phase (classic navigation using radar and a couple of Air Position Indicators). Some later courses did start with a handful of Bulldog trips. The basic JP syllabus was at 240 kts initially and increased to 300 in the second half. It taught the basics of visual navigation at 250 feet using map and stopwatch using half mil charts for the route and 50 thou OS maps for IP to Tgt runs.

Following the Basic phase students were streamed Group 1, fast jet, or Group 2, heavies. The Group 2 guys returned to the Dominic to learn the dark arts of astro etc. The Gp 1 guys then did a low level phase on the Dominie using the radar at 500 ft, as a potential lead in to terrain following radar. But it was essentially about sensor management and mental capacity assessment. Following this phase the studes returned to the JP where there was a common phase and following role disposal an advanced Air Defence or Strike Attack phase where role specific formation exercises were completed.

Happy Days!

Some of my most attentive customers, the JP lads.
There is a marvellous official RAF film extant of the briefing, planning and flying a JP low-level navex ............ yhe use of the specialised 50 thou and stopwatch fills me with admiration: bad enough at 60 mph in a car.

They used Jet Provost 5s with tip tanks fitted to allow for longer sorties.

Langleyb
We may well have met! 86-87 and 92-5 for me.

Dave

There was also some 5as, with a basic VOR and ILS. But no tip tanks. The 5 only had DME, double DME fixing across the airways of Europe to far flung destinations was a highlight. Hours of fun drawing circles on charts and fibbing on the flight plan.

Before that the flow was Varsities-JP 3-Dominies.

Dominie kit was originally 2 x Ground (not air) position indicators. Later 1xGPI and 1 x TANS (rudimentary digital Nav computer). Later still a full refit with pseudo GR1 kit just in time to be binned.
TL - Student 1973. Instructor (LL Dominies) 88-92

Time Lord, sorry you are right, GPIs, providing the Doppler was working or the screen hadn't turned it off as a test!

The handful of JP5As were (for 6FTS only) fitted with tip tanks. This did come with a limitation that prohibited solo flying, only dual. No drama for the 6FTS role of course... apart for a Scampton trapper who ignored the advice of the ground crew at F700 time when ferrying the aircraft from Cranwell with a new display paint scheme applied.

The JP was affectionally spoken of as "having constant thrust, variable noise". Just last week I was reminiscing, as I drove through the Lake District, of how we flew parallel to the M6 waving at car passengers who were on the same level on the motorway as we were at 250' in the Lune River valley near Tebay. That was 34 years ago under the tutelage of the likes of Bill Brandy and the infamous Dukesy of Cranwell IOT fame.

My saddest memory was the tragic incident which caused my last JP flight to be delayed on 22 Dec 1988, then moved to the New Year. Of all places, my final IP to Target run started at the Lockerbie A74 roundabout just hours after the events of that fateful day, the 21st.

Understood so far, but either JP5 or 5A did they have normal JP full dual controls or a nav fit in front of the student?

Edit Sorry for poor positioning of this post given the previous sensitive one.

I have a feeling that the cockpit modification for Nav training consisted of an extra stopwatch.

The Finningley JP5s were unmodified with the spin stakes and roughened leading edges, unlike the Mk5As used for pilot training. This gave them a lower fuel consumption in the order of 5lbs a minute at low level, which was significant, and with the tip tanks increasing the fuel load to about 2600lbs, the range was improved at low level. Some Mk5As were transferred to Finningley when they were released by the introduction of the Tucano, they were fitted with tip tanks and known as Mk5Bs, but they retained the strakes and the leading edges. In about 1993, they were replaced by Tucanos.

In 1970 I was lucky enough to get onto a low level nav course at Linton on Ouse flying JP 3, 4 and 5s. These last had just been delivered and had less then 10 hours in their F700s We were each allocated a pilot for the course and I was lucky enough to get a South African pilot called Al Colesky. Al had previousy led the Linton Gin formation team and he was keen to introduce me to the mysteries of aerobatics. On my first flight, which is in my logbook as "aircraft famil" , Al said we would skip the boring stuff like straight and level, and go straight into some aeros - thus it was that the first manouevre I carried out in a JP was a loop, which Al was kind enough to say was "not bad for a first effort".
Great fun, although what use the course was to me I couldn't see, as soon after I was on tankers, where FL 250 was about a close to low level as we ever got!

At the end of both phases on the Low Level training the budding fast jet navigator had completed 35 hrs of visual navigation using only a stopwatch and compass. On their final trip they were given a 'time on target' 3hrs before briefing, this was for the second of usually 3 targets. They then planned, briefed and led a pair with an 'aggressor' intercepting them before the second target leading to controlling the pair in evasive tactics and off route navigation. The standard which most achieved was to be over the target within 10 seconds of their tasked time. The target was either for recce or dive attack. The staff pilot contributed tuition and flying and on the final test was 'mute' as far as running the mission. Number 2 of the pair usually had a staff navigator.
I was always very impressed by the standard achieved with so few resources.
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Perched in the Duty Pilot's seat at Scampton many years ago, I was waiting for one of our Vulcans to return from a trip but there was nothing else going on. I was gazing out of the window whilst the local controller was busy with his crossword, when I was surprised to see a JP appear over the Lincoln edge at low level. It then flew a very steep 180° turn directly over the nuclear weapons storage area before Foxtrot Oscaring whence it came.

A JP5 with tip tanks could only have come from one place, so I rang the JP outfit at Finningley...

"Duty Pilot Scampton here. Nothing official but that was a most impressive low level steep turn by one of your jets! Fortunately neither ATC nor anyone important noticed, but if you Blyton was your target, it's about 10 nm north west of here!"

Perhaps not one of the better student navs?

Justthisonce. I believe the 5as were fitted with tip tanks sometime in the late 80s. I went through training with tankless 5as. Handy for the air defence phase above cloud as fixing was much quicker.

There's many a tale like that! Well done for looking out the window

Summer of '73 I was at Lindholme doing Area Radar. On a day off, I was exploring the airfields of Lincolnshire and started up a small hill to find a JP opposite direction coming up the other side at considerably less than 250ft agl!

I remember the typical flying program on the JP sqn at Finningley was three waves of eight aircraft, which would fit nicely into an 8 to 5ish working day. However, in 1980 cracks were found in the fin rear spars of all but three aircraft and for several weeks thereafter three waves of eight became eight waves of three!

Similar situation when the RAF OCU I worked on became short of airframes. Our Sqn boss decided that to make best use of what we had, to catch up with the course backlog, there would henceforth be an early shift and a late shift.

Almost immediately we all ended up working both shifts! To make it even better we worked weekends, too. If we worked over a full weekend we got just a single day off in the week instead, or sometimes not at all.

After an AOCs visit myself and a colleague were called into the Boss’s office to explain why we hadn’t taken all of our leave. I hadn’t taken any at all for 18 months (it had been noted by the AOCs team that some of us hadn’t taken our full leave entitlement for some time and he’d obviously had his ear bent). I reminded him that he had personally refused my last three leave pass applications over that period (much to the chagrin of my wife). Still, it didn’t do his career much harm because he subsequently went on to gain air rank. I eventually chose family integrity over my career and chucked it in at my 38 point.

Nothing changes! Remember the Wednesday Sports afternoons? Mid-1960s, Manby/Strubby regularly had to work that, and often Saturday mornings as well, to keep the student flow going. It only took a day of lousy weather to bring the pipeline to a halt.

In the early days the JP Sqn at Finningley was a bit of a punishment posting for FJ pilots so it had rather more than its share of “characters”!

Meanwhile "Sergeant Mac" valiantly papered over cracks, backfilled, improvised on his mighty wall displays to keep the Ground School programme more or less at the right stage for the flying. This would be about 1974. I wonder if he got the recognition he deserved. Cheerful, unflappable, flexible ................ super bloke.

I was never on an RAF station where there was a Wednesday sports afternoon (late 70s till mid 90s). It was up to individuals to keep themselves fit in their own time.

Hence it’s infamous Sqn Ldr Boss in the late 1980s.

Not sure it was ever fitness-related. It just gave a mid-week break, whilst allowing Sports teams to do their thing.

I remember when Linton-On -Ouse tried to get the students a little more sporty and so had the senior course organise a competion in the Gym. Sadly the posters for this event were worded somewhat ambiguously:

"Intercourse Sports Afternoon
Wednesday in the Gym"

Perhaps it was an introduction to the famous typo "Marital Arts Demonstration".

Church Fenton (63-65) - Weds Sports pm was for Stn teams only with Sat morning working being standard for all support personnel and Stn parade every fourth Sat.

Do you mean “Tommy” - the deaf, dumb and blind kid?

Many an officer took his hat off when he came by.

There's always been a question about what the correct designation for the 6 FTS tanked JPs was. I've seen the term T5B used for the aircraft fitted with Mod 1791 (tanks and the nose strakes removed) but I was led to believe this was unofficial.

T5A was the designation given to aircraft fitted with the improved avionics in the late 70s (some sources say this also removed the ability to carry tip tanks, which had been available but not used.)

We certainly must have crossed, I was there 85 - 87.

Steve

The original JP5s were mostly converted to JP5A in around 1974-5. A few JP5s were allocated to Finningley for navigator training; these were fitted with tip tanks, the moustache strakes were removed as was the roughened material on the wing leading edges. These were the only JP5s left in service and were never officially designated JP5B.

Spotters persisted in referring to them as JP5B, just as they referred to the F-4J(UK) as the 'Phantom F3' - but neither were officially used.

The fin spar cracks were, if memory served, tracked down as being caused by icing on the fin-mounted VOR antennae causing antenna flutter and stress to the fin. One pilot saw this when looking in the mirror once! One aircraft was nearly lost, but the solution was simple enough - bracing wires limiting antenna movement.

Yes, it was G***f St****ll who noticed movement of the fin when looking through the rear view mirror. I can't remember which phase of flight, but I know the aircraft was left at Llanbedr until a spare fin became available.

That makes sense, they remained JP5s!

Just to add to the fun, there were 5 replacement JP5A aircraft delivered in the late 80s which had the strakes removed and the tip tanks fitted!

Always thought the T5 with tip tanks looked more 'warlike' even in red and white!

I never did understand why low level nav at 300KIAS was approved for the JP. At 240KIAS the aircraft flew very nicely, but at 300KIAS it bounced around like a pea on a drum and needed full power in any signifcant turn to maintain the speed. Also the standard timing correction technique for late ETA really caned the aircraft and its engine. 10 sec late at 300KIAS meant increasing to 310KIAS for 5 minutes; anything more could easily exceed max. continuous rpm....

OK, 300KIAS was more fun as was a 300KIAS / 300ft agl VRIAB. Quite how the little Viper stood up to such abuse I don't know - but it certainly did.

Strikey would have been more fun.....

Before the Dominie was introduced (circa 1966?), we trainee navs were given a dozen or so trips in Meteor NF14s to get us used to going faster than a Varsity. One of those trips was at low level, but we still planned it like any other sortie, preparing a flight plan using our Dalton computers. By the time I did the Nav Refresher course in 1971, they'd set up the low level squadron at Finningley, using the JP4. I actually did that course three times in 1971/72 ; once on the Nav Refresher, once on the Phantom Lead-In Course (from which we were sent home and re-posted when the F4 fleet had Spey engine problems), and once on the Buccaneer Lead-in. The JP flying was great fun, and we were taught proper LL pilot navigation. 420 knots in the Bucc was still a bit of a shock initially after the JP's 240 knots!

-- Tim L

Intrigued by the query of what type of JPs were operated on LLADTS I checked my logbook - I was a stude on 362 ANC between Feb 88 - Jul 89. I see that I was on 'Basic JPs' on LLADTS between 3 Nov - 21 Dec 88 - I finished 'Basic FNT' the afternoon of Lockerbie! - and again on 'Advanced JPs' between 23 May - 29 Jun 89. I flew 40 sorties in total ('Inky Swot' -no reflies!!! :8) and this was broken down as 28 in the JP5, six in the JP5A and six in the JP5B. Interestingly all of the JP5B sorties were on 'Advanced JPs - twice in the AD Phase and three times in the SA Phase.

And indeed LLADTs was staffed by characters - I saw that Bill Brandie and 'Tommy' got a mention, and I see that I flew with them both. But the one I recall mainly with trepidation (and strangely a lot of professional affection) was John Abell aka 'Johnny Abdul' (Paula Abdul was big at the time - 'da yoof' please Google her!!!). To paraphrase Stravinsky on Rachmaninov - 'Johhny Abdul was six foot two of English gloom', but he had a heart of gold!