Sonic Boom

Soldato
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Shoreham was a sobering event which demonstrated the need for change. I don’t think air shows will be the same again.

Not sure on the need for change, it was a pilot doing something stupid, crowd centre line or higher minimum display ceiling would have done bugger all to advert it.
What he did was reckless and went beyond the allowed display scope.
 
Soldato
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Bruntingthorpe was a best place for up close and loud, even if they weren’t flying. That’s come to a grinding halt now as well unfortunately.

Never went to that one, was one in Yorkshire as well with a museum but some car storage firm bought the entire airfield and they have has to scrap a lot of aircraft that couldn't find new homes.
Sad state of bloody affairs.
 
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Never went to that one, was one in Yorkshire as well with a museum but some car storage firm bought the entire airfield and they have has to scrap a lot of aircraft that couldn't find new homes.
Sad state of bloody affairs.

Same thing happened at Bruntingthorpe - the car storage brought in so much money and needed up taking up so much of the airfield that the aircraft collection has had to be put on hold, even though everything was owned by the airfield owner. Money talks unfortunately - there’s still some going to be left there, including the Lightning’s and 3 of the large jets, but taxi days are not a thing currently. I’ve volunteered there for 10 years since the Nimrod arrived and it’s a damn shame.
 
Soldato
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Same thing happened at Bruntingthorpe - the car storage brought in so much money and needed up taking up so much of the airfield that the aircraft collection has had to be put on hold, even though everything was owned by the airfield owner. Money talks unfortunately - there’s still some going to be left there, including the Lightning’s and 3 of the large jets, but taxi days are not a thing currently. I’ve volunteered there for 10 years since the Nimrod arrived and it’s a damn shame.

Indeed, it's our heritage and a damn good one to be proud of, we had some amazing jet designs.
Pitty the governments were so short sighted, TSR-2 a prime example of incompetence.
Lightings are amazing! not sure they still fly them in South Africa nowadays.
 
Soldato
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lol apparently it was a Typhoon. been in contact w/ a jet threatening to shoot them down if they don't follow instructions :D
bring it on.

I never understand this. Say a plane is captured by terrorists over London and wants to nose dive into Westminster Palace. RAF come and shoot it down. It basically causes the exact same damage and terror.
 
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I never understand this. Say a plane is captured by terrorists over London and wants to nose dive into Westminster Palace. RAF come and shoot it down. It basically causes the exact same damage and terror.
If terrorists were to hijack an aircraft, they may not want to announce it to the world. Getting up there next to the aircraft to get eyes on the situation helps decision making.
 
Soldato
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I never understand this. Say a plane is captured by terrorists over London and wants to nose dive into Westminster Palace. RAF come and shoot it down. It basically causes the exact same damage and terror.
not remotely "exact". RAF could shoot it down before it reaches the target. a plane exploding in the air would negate a lot of fire blast that the fuel would create on the ground. impact of falling scattered debris would like be less than the impact of a cmplete plane powering into the ground.
 
Soldato
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Also they may want to crash into a high value target, shooting the aircraft down will stop them from achieving that goal, in that situation people will die but you may as well stop their goals in the process.
 
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Things like this make me wish I’d been born 30 years earlier so my RAF career would’ve been more fun...

Back in the days when the Vulcan was cutting edge kit, the USA built a national air defence system against the threat of a large scale USSR bombing raid with nukes. The best early warning system they could build, blanketing the country and quite some way out from it. More than a thousand interceptors ready to go. The whole nine yards. So they decided to test it. All civilian aircraft over the entire USA grounded for the duration of the test. It was a big deal. Loads of USAF planes playing the role of incoming Soviet aircraft. Catch me if you can...and they did. Almost every USAF plane playing the role of incoming Soviet aircraft was detected and intercepted. It was a very good national air defence system. The USA had all the tech and oodles of money and the will to spend it.

The USA invited the UK to take part too, so the RAF sent 8 Vulcans to play the role of incoming Soviet bombers. 7 of the 8 got through the air defence system and flew over major USA cities in what could have been a run to drop nukes, had they actually been enemy planes and not allied planes on an exercise. Oh dear, not a good result for the air defence system.

A couple of years later, the USA air defence shield had been upgraded and an even bigger test was done. And once again 7 of the 8 Vulcans got through the air defence system and flew over major USA cities in what could have been a run to drop nukes, had they actually been enemy planes.

Everyone agreed that this was something that would not be talked about, at all :) The USA public was told that the test was a huge success and the involvement of the RAF was never mentioned. It was declassified 50 years later.

I'm sure it was fun for the RAF people involved. Winning a contest against a top tier opponent is usually a lot of fun.
 
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not remotely "exact". RAF could shoot it down before it reaches the target. a plane exploding in the air would negate a lot of fire blast that the fuel would create on the ground. impact of falling scattered debris would like be less than the impact of a cmplete plane powering into the ground.

Also they may want to crash into a high value target, shooting the aircraft down will stop them from achieving that goal, in that situation people will die but you may as well stop their goals in the process.

I was thinking a plane is coming to land at London City airport. It gets the ok. That's when it's taken over and heads west. Fighter jets scrambled and reach it somewhere between Canary Warf and tower of london. It's shot down and it's engines fuselage and other debris land on the Shard or London Bridge, or perhaps a bit further north towards Canon Street. Big mess.
 
Man of Honour
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The USA invited the UK to take part too, so the RAF sent 8 Vulcans to play the role of incoming Soviet bombers. 7 of the 8 got through the air defence system and flew over major USA cities in what could have been a run to drop nukes, had they actually been enemy planes and not allied planes on an exercise. Oh dear, not a good result for the air defence system.

A couple of years later, the USA air defence shield had been upgraded and an even bigger test was done. And once again 7 of the 8 Vulcans got through the air defence system and flew over major USA cities in what could have been a run to drop nukes, had they actually been enemy planes.

Couple of good YT videos on how they did it - I'm not sure it would be so easy to replicate in a real scenario though as you'd need at least one pilot who was basically suicidal to potentially sacrifice to pull it off (who basically blinded defences to the other incoming bombers).
 
Man of Honour
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I was thinking a plane is coming to land at London City airport. It gets the ok. That's when it's taken over and heads west. Fighter jets scrambled and reach it somewhere between Canary Warf and tower of london. It's shot down and it's engines fuselage and other debris land on the Shard or London Bridge, or perhaps a bit further north towards Canon Street. Big mess.

Probably a lot less mess than if it slammed into Tower 42 or something like that replicating 911 though.
 
Soldato
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Couple of good YT videos on how they did it - I'm not sure it would be so easy to replicate in a real scenario though as you'd need at least one pilot who was basically suicidal to potentially sacrifice to pull it off (who basically blinded defences to the other incoming bombers).

Well your not going to have a nice welcome home or world to live in if it was for real so may as well go out with a bang.
 
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Couple of good YT videos on how they did it - I'm not sure it would be so easy to replicate in a real scenario though as you'd need at least one pilot who was basically suicidal to potentially sacrifice to pull it off (who basically blinded defences to the other incoming bombers).

Not easy, but possible. If things were going that badly wrong, there would have been people who'd do the job knowing their chances of survival were poor. I'm reminded of the "Hurricat" pilots in the battle of the Atlantic in WW2. 1 against who knows how many, starting from below the enemy and with no way to land if they survived the fight. They'd have to ditch in the mid-Atlantic, which is not a scenario with a good life expectancy. That's assuming they survived the fight. Probably a better chance of survival than the scenario you're referring to, but still a high likelihood of death.

All the more so if the "it's gone very wrong" scenario is a global nuclear war. There would be plenty of people who didn't really want to survive anyway.
 
Man of Honour
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Not easy, but possible. If things were going that badly wrong, there would have been people who'd do the job knowing their chances of survival were poor. I'm reminded of the "Hurricat" pilots in the battle of the Atlantic in WW2. 1 against who knows how many, starting from below the enemy and with no way to land if they survived the fight. They'd have to ditch in the mid-Atlantic, which is not a scenario with a good life expectancy. That's assuming they survived the fight. Probably a better chance of survival than the scenario you're referring to, but still a high likelihood of death.

All the more so if the "it's gone very wrong" scenario is a global nuclear war. There would be plenty of people who didn't really want to survive anyway.

True there is also the Doolittle raid which was pretty much suicidal from and including take off.
 
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I was thinking a plane is coming to land at London City airport. It gets the ok. That's when it's taken over and heads west. Fighter jets scrambled and reach it somewhere between Canary Warf and tower of london. It's shot down and it's engines fuselage and other debris land on the Shard or London Bridge, or perhaps a bit further north towards Canon Street. Big mess.

Not something worth worrying about - if it isn’t taken over till it’s already over London then nothing is going to reach it in time anyway. It’s not a solution that fits every possible scenario, just the one that gives the government the most options in the event that an aircraft is either hijacked or hostile in our airspace.

I’m sure there are exercises played out for various possibilities and the ultimate decision for shooting something down rests with the PM, but hopefully it’ll never happen.
 
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