Gate Guards

And quite rightly too. IIRC its RAF policy that you have a gate guard of a type that has served at the station, what relevance is a Phantom to Brampton???

canberra;94221 wrote:

And quite rightly too. IIRC its RAF policy that you have a gate guard of a type that has served at the station, what relevance is a Phantom to Brampton???

My question as well. Those in the interview were more into their personal experiences than the historical significance of the aircraft at present location.

It wasnt only Brampton that had this problem. RAF Woodvale was a Meteor station in the fifties and had a Meteor on the gate. They got a new CO who was ex Phantom pilot so he replaced the Meteor with a Phantom, a lot of the locals were annoyed at losing the Meteor.

that a bit like boulmer then as that has a phantom for there gate guard

cheers rich

Come on chaps - its simples:

Brampton - Phantom used to have a recce role and JARIC is/was at Brampton - simples.

Boulmer - used to control Phantoms - even more simples.

Woodvale - not so simples.

You forgot Neatishead and St Athan - the both had Phantoms!!!! Simples or not simples???

ok why does stafford have a harrier then if its a mu base

thanks rich

The Phantom had a recce role for about 6 years!

REF;94296 wrote:

You forgot Neatishead and St Athan - the both had Phantoms!!!! Simples or not simples???

St Athan had a Phantom because that's where the major servicing of the type was carried out, also the then CO was an ex Phanton chap and that's why XV500 was re serialled as 'XV498'.
As the station didn't have based squadrons as such it fell to finding an aircraft with other links, I'm trying to track down a Harrier GR.3 at the moment, but see St Athan thread as to why that will probably come to nothing.
I have heard that Neatishead has a Phantom in respect to both the stations', and aircrafts', role in UK air defence.

Personally I think it's great that some bases have gate guards which are related to a particular unit and not just the station/airfield, sometimes it's nice to look beyond the obvious, and for some units to be able to have an aircraft gate guard when otherwise they wouldn't.

REF;74238 wrote:

New on the gate at RAF Wittering, Harrier GR.9 (ZD469). It was put in place on 27 April replacing the Harrier GR.3 which is now being refurbished. Photo taken today, 2 May 2011.

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Must be one of only a few left in the uk, since the fleet was sold to the us. All the harriers went for the price of a c130