Old news, but, damn, them Brits are good pilots...

[Mathman]

... or maybe just a bit insane.

Interesting story I found while searching for info on the Tornado.  Don't know how true it is, but it is the kind of crazy thing you would expect from someone on that side of the lake.

Tornado story

[Sparks]

Hate to say it Math but it's probably true.  Those Tornado pilots are a bit good - I've personally seen them down the valleys in North Yorkshire where I'm looking down on them from half way up the Valley side.   A glider pilot where I flew was ridge soaring in N Yorkshire at about 700ft above the ridge and had one go under him coming off the moors - he about cr***ed himself.

[AKDejaVu]

I've heard rumors of an F-111 vs Jaguar "competition" in Australia at one of the 366th's TDYs.  The competition was to see who could fly closest to the runway at 500 mph.  The 111 turned in an impressive 5 yards from the runway performance.  The Jaguar turned in a slightly better 5 feet from the runway preformance.

AKDejaVu

[gatso]

standard practice.

I remember sitting at the top of High Force, a big (for the UK) waterfall on a hot summers day dangling my feet in the water cooling off after a long walk. Looking down the river I notice a couple of specks in the distance, no sideways movement so I know they're either heading directly for me or directly away. It turned out to be a 2 ship of Tornados on reheat with about 200 feet between them.

I was lucky noticing them early. There were a few other people around and quite a few of them fell over when the one of the Tornados come screaming up the river, pulled up and missed the top of the waterfall by about 6 feet   Great stuff.

The Hawk pilots at RAF Valley are the maddest bunch of the lot. When I visited Valley a few years ago they told us they had a hard limit of flying no lower than 200 feet while on exercises and the hardware would monitor this and you'd end up with a bollocking if you broke it. The thing was the hardware was a radar altimeter in the belly of the aircraft. One enterprising pilot noticed that because the radar beam came out the bottom of his aircraft he could fly as low as he wanted as long as he was inverted or in a hard bank and the hardware would not pick it up. Not sure if this is true but it would explain the hawk I saw whilst on a family holiday. He was following a road in the bottom of a welsh valley at 25 feet... inverted.

Gatso

[TWOLF]

I am still in the Army reserve so I can't share, but I am pretty sure that there are a few other Gulf War vets out there that can.

You want to scare the Sh** out of an Iraqi?  Just Yell TORNADO!

[udet]

whoa...these guys a f*cking nuts:eek:

[Hawklore]

and to think i was thinking of joining the RAF when i got old enough...

Seems like there just my type..

[SFRT - Frenchy]

No big deal,
the Tornado, as well as the F111 have a "terrain following" radar linked to the autopilot. Select your alt, engage warp1 and go smoke a cig.

200ft, 600kts is routine.

[Blank]

My Uncle used to fly tornados and Jaguars and yes they are nuts, I have heard quite a few stories.

Now hes stuck behind a desk at the MOD in london as some fool made him an Air Commodor.

I think hes also the last surviving member of his induction group and is himself a member of the 'Martin Baker Fan Club' as well.

When he used to fly, sometimes he would locate our house and fly over and 'waggle' the wings of his tornado, then he would ring that night to see if we had seen, LOL

he also once managed to fly over to england from germany (he was based there at the time, flying Jags), and got my mum to get a spare part for his car which he picked up from farnborough (where I was born)

[qts]

In Iraq, pilots found that the TFR was too good: it responded to every little ripple in the sand. So they turned it  to ASL mode, with predictable results to the camel just on the far side of the dune... I'm sure Eagl has a few stories in this vein.