Thursday, Aug 06, 2009 at 16:05
G’day Ron,
I used to enjoy those exercises as
well. The noise levels were momentarily overpowering as the airport came under high speed, low level “attack.”
That wasn’t a Sabre you saw as they were out of service by then, replaced by the Dassault Mirage. However, what you would most likely have seen chasing a Vulcan would have been an F4 Phantom from the RNZAF. I understand that the Vulcan’s crew (usually five personnel) got into strife during those exercises because they demonstrated some of the aircraft’s capabilities which the Brits didn’t want publicised.
I didn’t see the incident you refer to but did see another which I heard later got the lads a bollocking. I was at the two and half mile with some other observers watching a Vulcan passing directly overhead at high altitude. From the south-west we observed an F4 heading towards the Vulcan at high velocity. To our amazement the Vulcan accelerated away at such speed the F4 didn’t catch up to it. It gave the impression of instant high speed like watching a dragster.
As an aside, the Vulcan upset some
Darwin residents at the time because it would release chaff to cloud the radar. This frightened some of the residents.
Kurd
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