raf strike command

Has any research been carried on the subject of the British Island Bases Strategy of the late 1960s ? My understanding is that the idea was use Indian Ocean islands as bases for RAF F-111s when the Navy's aircraft carriers were withdrawn. One island which was seriously considered was Aldabra but...

There is a little on the genesis of the Comet R.2 and Nimrod R.1 in Richard Aldrich's book 'GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain's Most Secret Intelligence Agency.' I thought I'd share these since some of it might be interesting info. Probably the decision to equip Comets as sigint platforms...

220 Tornado IDS; replacing 7 Squadrons (6 from 1981) of Vulcan B.2 (56 in total), 5 squadrons of Jaguar and 2 squadrons of RAF Germany Buccaneers: 11 squadrons planned as of 1985 of which 2 were to be recce. there was ultimately a try-national training unit and the TWCU. 165 Tornado ADV...

The V-bomber fleet spent most of its life with relatively primitive avionics for the age, as far as I can tell only two major(ish) changes were ever made, the first was the addition of the ARI 5959 (General Dynamics AN/APN-170) J-band terrain following radar, however this came with restrictions-...

Hell-For-Leather After their nuclear attack against a Soviet industrial target, the crew of this TSR2 dive back to the relative safety of supersonic low-level flight. With the bomber’s cover now broken, a “Shilka” self-propelled anti-aircraft gun is the first enemy unit to respond. As they...

After my post someone pointed this out to me - any ideas/comments ? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vulcans-Hammer-V-force-Aircraft-Projects/dp/1902109171/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289860167&sr=1-1 .

Back in the 80s it was finally realised that the Avro Shackleton AEW was obsolete and later that the Nimrod AEW.3 project was very unlikely to work correctly. The UK Government and MoD went looking for a replacement and settled on the E-3D Sentry which entered RAF service in 1990. What were the...

BSP4 mentions proposals for air-launched versions of the Polaris and Pershing missiles for use on RAF Vulcans, does anyone have any performance estimates for these and how would they have compared to Skybolt?

Curious to know if Concorde was ever considered in a military role, maybe as a recce aircraft or cruise missile platform? Would this have been feasible?

The preferred UK AEW for the RAF was always the Nimrod as it was big and in production. In 1966 studies looked at various radar options, but lack of money delayed it. All of the above comes from 'Airborne Early Warning, design, development and operations' by Mike Hirst, Osprey, 1983.

Contenders General Dynamics Tomahawk/Airhawk AGM-137 TSSM Loral Vought ALCAM (ATACMS derivative) McDonnell-Douglas AGM-84E Rockwell Extended-Range AGM-130E with Williams P8300 turbofan Brunswick Defense ITALD Texas Instruments JSOW Rafael AGM-142 DASA/Hunting/Bofors KEPD250 Aerospatiale ASMP-C...

Contenders Aerospatiale ASLP Boeing SRAM-T (SRAM-2 derivative) Martin Marietta/BAeD/Hunting TASM-UK Source: John Fricker "RAF Operational Requirements" Air International May 1993

I was thinking the other day, 'did the British ever think of, or look at a carrier-based variant of the English Electric Canberra light bomber'? Does anyone know an answer to this? Regards Pioneer