Royal Air Force

canberra;57938 wrote:

Do not get me started on Dundee airport!! The city fathers were actually offered Errol in the late forties, and interestingly (well its interesting to me) it did close for a few years.

As for Leuchars V Lossie, well if mr Salmond gets his way then both may close.

Ahhh watching the local news he is changing his tune noiw the cruch has come he wants all the bases to stay open !!

What I meant Ted was that if the Scottish people vote for independence then of course there may well be no military aircraft in Scotland, or if there are there will be a lot less.

I think I'm with Ted on this. They are about to build a new control tower at Lossie and to shut two adjacent bases would upset the local economy to an unacceptable level. Move the Tiffie to Lossie and close Leuchars makes sense, or at least give Leuchars to the Army for units coming home from Germany between 2015 and 2020. The various reports about Tornado suggest its redeployment will be all done and dusted by 31 October 2011 - but the Defence Reform Unit is not reporting until July. Sounds like someone has been doing some advance planning!

I think for every option considered there was a plan A B & C to go with it.. Lots of rumblings at Lossie today with the scottish Sec visiting the Moray action group there seems as usual to be several leaked documents in the public domain, outlines the lossie drawdown !!. I don't know that the Army would want Leuchars the infrastructure is in an appalling state.

TED

Ted: I was once told by a Bootie that when you are living in a Nissen hut, an appalling ex-RAF barrack block has its attractions!

Ted, why was nt QRA at Lossie or Kinloss in the days of the cold war????? Simple answer Leuchars was best option to cover population centres of northern Britain.

As for Leuchars closing, this kept getting talked about for years and years, its geographical location is one reason why its stayed open. And being cynical the golf courses!

Apparently Kinloss will be housing the Army units withdrawn fron Germany.

Leuchars was QRA because the other stations were full, Kinloss was a very busy Coastal unit with Shackleton squadrons up the ying yang and Lossie was the FAAs busiest naval airfield before becoming a busy RAF jet (and AEW QRA) airfield.
With jet QRA altough the idea is to ultimately protect industrial areas etc it wasn't by having to be based near them (Binbrook is good case).
The idea was to launch the jets against an enemy bomber and bring it down before reaching the coast, not loiter over areas to protect them, it wouldn't of mattered strategically where the QRA was based out of the three camps as the jets would still reach and intercept the opposition in good time.

I think the industry bit is some what outdated now. the reason for Northern Q is to link up with the Norwegians, while we are that far north it gives time for a tanker to be launched; In the 90s we used to do month about with the Leeming F3 wing do you remember that canberra ?/ To me the further north the better.
TED

As I said Ted , why wasnt Northern Q at Lossie or Kinloss during the cold war??? And on another point ref Q, why wasnt there a tanker det at Leuchars???? I asked that question at Marham in 79 and was told shut up and dont ask stupid questions.

And it wasnt month about with Leeming, it was during my time something like four months at a time. And I bet you didnt know that in October 89 there was actually two Northern Qs did you? When Leeming first did Q they were "not confident" to quote Oc Ops at Q so for the first 24 hours of Leemings coverage Leuchars also held Q in case Leeming did anything stupid. And in 99 Coningsby took over Q for the first time in a good few years, Q launched on a practice scramble. As Q was launched BBMF got airborne for a practice display at Coningsby. The tower kept Q holding whilst BBMF displayed!!!!!

canberra;57984 wrote:

why wasnt Northern Q at Lossie or Kinloss during the cold war??? And on another point ref Q, why wasnt there a tanker det at Leuchars????

Because of what I said in Post #60,

mawganmad;57967 wrote:

Leuchars was QRA because the other stations were full, Kinloss was a very busy Coastal unit with Shackleton squadrons up the ying yang and Lossie was the FAAs busiest naval airfield before becoming a busy RAF jet (and AEW QRA) airfield.
With jet QRA altough the idea is to ultimately protect industrial areas etc it wasn't by having to be based near them (Binbrook is good case).
The idea was to launch the jets against an enemy bomber and bring it down before reaching the coast, not loiter over areas to protect them, it wouldn't of mattered strategically where the QRA was based out of the three camps as the jets would still reach and intercept the opposition in good time.

Tankers didn't have to be based anywhere else in the UK other than Marham (later Brize) because they had a long range and the AAR coridors were frequently inhabited by tankers ready to pass on fuel. You wouldn't want to base them along side your QRA fighters anyway.