by Nick Anderson | Aug 27, 2024 | Plane Tales
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My logbook tales continue with my tour on Tremblers flying the F3 Tornado which had got off to a difficult start when our compliment of brand new aircraft were shipped off to other squadrons and, in return, we received the dregs of the RAF’s Tornado ADVs. They certainly weren’t in the best of condition and I began to think I was fated when I was forced to divert following a generator failure and X-drive clutch failure on an air test but then I was looking forward to leading a detachment down to Coningsby to fight F-16s over the North Sea in the Air Combat Manoeuvring range for a week.
The British Aerospace North Sea ACMI served UK and European Air Forces
Tremblers formate on the RAF’s new E3D Airborne Early Warning aircraft.
An F3 Tornado fires an AIM 9 Sidewinder missile
A piper plays at sunset
A 100 Squadron Hawk trainer
An F3 on approach
The K2 Victor Air to Air Refuelling tanker trailing all 3 hoses
Italian firemen hose down a Tornado canopy as it was too hot to close properly
The F3’s single Mauser 27mm cannon
The golfer Tom Kite playing for the USA in the Dunhill Cup at St Andrews
The Royal and Ancient golf club at St Andrews beside the 1st tee and the 18th green. In front is the historic bridge built for herders over the Swilken Burn
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, the R&A golf club, BAe, Mike Freer and Optograph.
by Nick Anderson | Jun 28, 2024 | Plane Tales
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It’s the summer of 1971 and Helen Reddy is singing about hiking down to the canyon store to buy a bottle wine and having such a good time. I have no doubt that the nine prominent Salt Lake members of the Fishy Trout and Drinking Society returning from their deep sea fishing trip were feeling equally relaxed as they boarded their flight back home from Los Angeles. They were getting onto a Hughes Airwest DC-9, Flight 706, the forerunner of Capt Jeff’s beloved Mad Dog and Angry Puppy, belonging to a new regional airline purchased and renamed by Howard Hughes. A little before them, a U.S. Marine Corps F-4B Phantom II, Bureau Number 151 458, departed Mountain Home Air Force Base in southwest Idaho, bound for Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada…. and so the story starts!
A Hughes Airwest DC-9
A U.S. Marine Corps F-4J Phantom II,
An ANA B-727
A JAF Japanese built F-86F Sabre
The B-727 and F86 tracks
The flight paths of the DC-9 and the Marine F-4
The F4’s position as would be seen from the DC-9 cockpit
The DC-9’s position from the F4 front cockpit
The eye’s Fovea Centralis, the small area of the eye’s retina that can detect fine detail
Various TCAS displays
Images under a Creative Commons licence with thanks to Richard Silagi, the U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation, Michael Bernhard, Hunini, the NTSB, the USN and U.S. Defense Imagery.
by Nick Anderson | Jun 27, 2024 | Plane Tales
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The numeric version of three previous Tales covering the A to Z of Aviation. Now we look at what numbers might mean to pilots?
Babylonian numeric text
The Japanese Zero fighter
A ‘tongue in cheek’ three engined Airbus
The twin hulled S55 flying boat
The North American F-82
Flying in Vic
The Piaggio Avanti EVO
The Old Course with RAF Leuchars in the background
The 10 ton Grand Slam bomb
The Seven Seas appeal of the DC-7C
The NASA B-52 “Balls 8”
Red 10
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin, Kogo, Arpingstone, images from the Public Domain, the USAF, the RAF, Scott Cormie, Swissair and Delta, NASA,
by Nick Anderson | Jun 10, 2024 | Plane Tales
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As you may recall I was undergoing the training course for the Tornado F3 Air Defence Variant having completed four previous flying tours. Now being a senior officer it made the job of working as a student again a little more bearable.
The Old Pilot’s logbook tales continue:
An RAF Tornado Air Defence Variant
67° wing sweep
Ait to Air refuelling from the wing stations of an RAF VC10
We watched in horror as a motley collection of hanger queens and scruffy excuses for aeroplanes were delivered, bent and leaking, onto our aprons
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the Royal Air Force, the MOD, Adrian Pingstone, Chris Lofting, J Thomas and Pràban na Linne Ltd.
by Nick Anderson | Feb 6, 2024 | Plane Tales
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Form 414, my RAF Logbook continues with me leaving Australia and the Hornet unhappily in my rear vision mirror as I was heading back to Blighty and a cold winter in Lincolnshire. No 229 Operational Conversion Unit was the training unit that would give me my first taste of the Mighty Fin, the Swing Wing Super Jet, Mother Riley’s Cardboard Aeroplane otherwise known as the Air Defence Variant of the Tornado.
Not just a British aircraft, the Tornado was a project involving Germany and Italy as well.
A cutaway of the ADV Tornado
Just some of the multitude of limitations that Tornado pilots were required to memorise
The Tornado cockpit showing the wing sweep lever
The Mighty Fins of 43 and 111 Squadrons
The RB199 lacked sufficient thrust to allow the F3 to perform adequately at medium and high level but it did have a way of going backwards!
Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Surruno, Panavia, BAe, the RAF Museum, Mike Freer, Kevan Dickin, Chris Lofting and the RAF.
by Nick Anderson | Feb 5, 2024 | Plane Tales
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After I landed my aircraft I clambered out of the Hornet with the cold realisation that I might have flown my last sortie. The spinning sensation had ceased and the sortie had gone beautifully, it was almost as if it had been a bad dream. A continuation of tales from the Old Pilot’s logbook, RAF Form 414.
Was the sun about to set on my career?
The surgery span round and round
Promotion
Exercise K89
One of our opponents, the F16
Firing off live missiles like the AIM 7M Sparrow
Landing in a thunderstorm
A week on Song Song island acting as the Range Safety Officer
The RSO and his crew of Malay troops
My final flight and the boys renamed my aircraft Nick The Pom!
