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FAC
at Spadeadam
Strikers
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All photos by Steven Hadlow / aircraftinaction.co.uk
RAF
Spadeadam FAC Ex - 26th October 2004
With
the airshow season coming to an end, I was still in need of a fix of fast jet
action and having seen the weather forecast was going to be good and the promise
of quite a few frontliners I decided to go to RAF Spadeadam and watch the
day’s proceedings. Upon arriving at 9.30am we were greeted by a pair of
Gazelles sitting on the grass, these turned out to be an AAC example and a RM
one.
Unfortunately
during the first hour we became aware of some bad news, seven slots that had
previously been filled by RAF Tornado GR4’s had been cancelled, we think this
was because of a gunnery exercise for the Tornadoes on the East coast ranges and
instead they were ‘touting’ for trade with anything in the area, so it
wasn’t until late morning when we had our first visitors, this turned out to
be Cannon 1+2, a pair of Jaguar GR3’s from RAF Coltishall, Cannon 1 only made
one run and departed for home but fortunately Cannon 2 stayed to play for a
while and made several runs, creating nice vortices in the moist air, one of
these included a sharp left turn to avoid a flock of birds, another sharp turn
this time to the right prevented a fast pass of the controllers hut much to the
disappointment of the gathered enthusiasts. Another long gap came and went until
our next visitor of the day, this turned out to be an RAF C-130 Hercules,
Next
up and working with the two Gazelles were two 100sq Hawks, 3J 415 A+B stayed on
the range for about forty-five minutes doing simulated bomb and rocket runs on
various targets from differing heights.
Before
the three Harriers came in to round of the day we were treated to a brief
glimpse of a pair of Tornado GR4’s. These turned out to be Cobra 1+2 from 13sq
at RAF Marham that were transiting through the range at 5000ft. We could also
hear a pair of Tornado F-3’s, Savage 1+2 didn’t come anywhere near the deck
staying well over 15,000ft which was very frustrating.
The last hour of daylight activity was taken up with three Harrier GR7’s from 4 squadron from RAF Cottesmore. First up was COT 61 who made several dry runs on various simulated targets on the range from straight and level flight to ‘pop up’ attacks which involved staying low and then climbing up sharply to get visual on the target and then diving in to the attack. Next up was COT 62 again doing much the same sort of profile, but the highlight of the day was saved till last. COT 16 who we think was an exchange pilot, was ‘hot’ which means he was carrying live 3kg practice bombs, and very accurate he was too. He had four attacks and at least two were direct hits on simulated tanks, the other two looked very close too, just a matter of feet away. Then finally what I had hoped to see, the last fly-by of the day was just awesome a Harrier GR7 fast and low at 100ft maximum right over the top and then into a steep climb and half Cuban, and away he went, a great ending to a somewhat slow day which eventually picked up and ended on a real high.
Managers
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