Vulcan 'Appearing' at Nellis for Red Flag...

[tvradict]

Was talking to a pilot friend of mine on monday about Low Level flying (we got onto it after talking about the F3 from Leuchars) and the topic moved onto Low Level Cold War training, and more specifically the Vulcan's and their participation in Red Flag in the late '70s.

Now, I'm sure I have read somewhere, a story about the 2 Vulcans going to Nellis AFB for the first Red Flag they attended, and annoucing their arrival by appearing on Radar a few miles from the base - having travelled accross the US undetected, and embarrasing the US Military in the process.

Now. I cannot find anything on the internet to back up this story. My friend also knows of this story.

Does anyone have any more details about this?

More importantly, is it true??

[Steve748]

I think IIRC there is something about it in the book about the Falklands raid

[gopher]

I'm not sure about the arrival but my old man was on 208 with Bucc's and attended the first, and second, red flag exercises and I do recall him saying how the yanks could not get a lock on the Vulcans (and Bucc's) simply because they were flying so low.

I'm sure I've also read accounts of observers being hit by sand and stones kicked up by them as they passed overhead but I would have to dig through piles of stuff to corroborate it.

[Skywalker]

I heard similar from one of my dad's best friends who was there on Buccs who, after hitting the target, in debrief explained there route in an out only to be told that that was impossible - so he showed them the camera photos.

[jr@]

The whole red flag stories regarding the vulcan crews intrests me loads, only really red tiny bits of info before, but they all seem to confirm that the vulcans and crews seemed to show the us a thing or to

anyne know more ?

[gopher]

607 was one of the Vulcans (the same aircraft that did the first of the Black Buck missions) and had it undersides painted tan over the grey (I think, it may have been the other way round)

[fadeaway]

I remember a couple of stories from Red Flag (and maybe another UK/US training exercise)

believe that a vulcan managed to nuke NY without being detected on one exercise,

and the commanding officer of the Red Flag test range at the time apparantly had a picture on his wall showing the desert floor with a big mark on it .... made by a vulcan flying so flow one wing tip touched the ground!

[FourWheelDrift]

There's a few stories here, about the Buccaneers on the Red Flag exercises but a good read.

http://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/4...

Some Vulcan stories as well though.

[MartG]

I heard a story about how one of the Red Flag Vulcan's had an electrical failure which took out its nav equipment - with the crew navigating manually using a sextant etc. they still ended up spot on target

[chriswright]

It's in the first bit of Vulcan 607, there's another one about them flying through the grand canyon only to see a big minimum height warning on the maps when they arrived.

[Steve748]

chriswright said:

It's in the first bit of Vulcan 607, there's another one about them flying through the grand canyon only to see a big minimum height warning on the maps when they arrived.

as I said in post 1, sorry couldn't remember the numbers....

[report] [news] 16:32
I think IIRC there is something about it in the book about the Falklands raid

[The Hypno-Toad]

My mums old boss used to fly Vulcans and he mentioned on several occasions that it really was a case of "how low can you go?" at Red Flag. The Americans were always amazed at the standard of flying.

[Stickers]

As I pointed out in a previous post re; the Vulcan, it was the worlds first stealth bomber - more by accident than design

From certain angles & due to it's smooth shape, it became difficult to detect on radar.

I just dug this up, second paragraph from bottom: http://www.wingweb.co.uk/aircraft/The_Avro_Vulcan....

[XB70]

0:31

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Btdi8qNutw

I have never seen lower!

[Stickers]

XB70 said:

0:31

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Btdi8qNutw

I have never seen lower!

We had Bucc's at Laarbruch, Germany during the 70's & early 80's - on exercise they were low, I mean VERY low. Often only breaking the tree line when changing direction - difficult to track & discriminate from spurrious signals.

I had the pleasure of sitting in the nav's chair on Circuits & Bumps before they were eventually replaced by Tornado's around 1982.

[Skywalker]

XB70 said:

0:31

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Btdi8qNutw

I have never seen lower!

1:55 is pretty damn impressive too