F18 inbound

[liam_lyneham]

how long are the hornets due for?i see they have been working a lot of ranges today,is this all from lyneham?and will they be here ove rthe weekend?sorry for the questions but have been away from the computer for a couple of weeks now and trying to catch up
thanks

not out of lyneham they wont be. Got in to work tonight, and my supervisor gave ops a ring to ask if they knew of any hornets tonight, and from what i could make of the conversation, lyneham have withdrawn themselves from the excercises Diversion airfield list. Incorrect apllication or something, the hornets were using us fo fuel rather than an emergency diversion, that and noise levels at un-sociable time.

... but.. could be wrong.

[RichC]

Got to love it, so the USS George Bush now has no fuel divert field whatsoever.
Their primary of Culdrose has no runway available, the secondary come primary of Yeovilton keeps closing at night and so not available. Now their third choice will no longer allow them to use it. They have no AR cover bar one VC10 every now and then, the RAF, USAF, French are all involved in Libya.
This is a work up for Afghanistan before Bush goes to war..... bit of a pee take really if NATO cannot stretch a tanker to refuel these guys.
I always said from the start they needed an Omega tanker over here...

And people wonder why they only have 3 minutes of playtime over Salisbury Plain and the pilots swearing on the mic saying they cant conduct their training.
If this is the waywe as hosts treat the exercise then we can kiss goodbye to any other large scale Carrier Ex in the future.

At the end of the day, its only for a few darn days/nights, its not permanent!

[StuBie]

Perhaps they would have been better off using Fairford then?

[RichC]

Takes the mickey that the RN can't keep open an airfield for a few days over a weekend.... and at night. Its not like they were not used to the noise. And its only temporary.
Fair play the sortie rate is very high, but these guys are training for Afghanistan, they will simply oh fudge off somewhere else.

[Victor5]

Ahhhh! If only St Mawgan was still an MOD airfield , they were open most of the time (upto 2200 / 2300 hrs) including weekends. No doubt the airfield would have been involved in this exercise.

[buzzer]

Ahhhh! If only St Mawgan was still an MOD airfield , they were open most of the time (upto 2200 / 2300 hrs) including weekends. No doubt the airfield would have been involved in this exercise.

yeah.. secound that.. and everything would have operated out of there to i bet.. the CODs the F-18.. the lot.
but never ment to be.. shame the runway is still closed here at CU.. guess some one did'nt plan that one to well!!

[RichC]

Typically not planned very well. So what if its the weekend, its one weekend over a whole year. Not asking for much is it to play host to the USN.
Should be proud they came over on the first ever deployment and the first ever deployment of the Growler in the Atlantic.

What a cock up.

[BOLLO]

Should have taken over Fairford,they would have had it all to them selves with no hassle at all.

[RichC]

Thing is, they would need a vast ground support to do it at Fairford, i.e flying in plane loads of support equipment, ground crews, vehicles etc and thats why they planned on using RAF/RN airfields as its all there already.
That first sortie which went into Lyneham was a "planned" practice divert to Yeovilton, the pilot was a bit taken back when London Mil said it was closed and said "this is where the carrier has sent me tonight".

[Chris IL-76]

Shame they will not use Lyneham then....soon they'll be no noise at all anyway!!!

[liam_lyneham]

That first sortie which went into Lyneham was a "planned" practice divert to Yeovilton, the pilot was a bit taken back when London Mil said it was closed and said "this is where the carrier has sent me tonight".

Not completely true, he was on a "maintenance flight" and He had a Fuel transfer problem on the way back to the ship. He couldn't empty his external centerline tank, and they are not allowed to land on the ship with any fuel in it, so we had to siphon it out manually and then put it back in the normal refuel point. But yes, i don't think they realised yeovilton wasn't open 24hrs Like Lyneham is. So Lyneham was the nearest Open MDA.

I'm sure If there's an actual emergency, or transfer problem again, (apparently quite common on the older ones), Then Lyneham will of course allow it as serving its duty as an MDA. i Believe ts just they were/are unhappy about the Super hornet arriving just for fuel. The 3rd had the same transfer problem.

[RichC]

For reference,
Was it not the second one that had the fuel transfer problem? The one with a fuel priority?
As the pilot of the first one (AJ-404 - PARTY 404) stated on the radio he was a "practice divert".
The second one, SARRIE conducted CAS over SPTA and went back to the Carrier but couldn't land due to fuel issues and went to Lyneham instead too.
Confusing..... oh well, over and done with now. Next Carrier deployment in the UK probably will never happen unless its for Joint Warrior.

I was amazed to see the normal Hornets on this deployment, i thought they were all Super Hornets until i saw pics.....
Hopefully tomorrow it will be back to normal and Lyneham wont be needed....as Yeovilton is open until around midnight for night flying.

[liam_lyneham]

To clarify what happened on the ground at lyneham...

The first one that came in at 2000Local time was 404, and that had the transfer problem.

The SuperHornet came in about an hour afterwards for a standard refuel.

The third one 400, came in 2330Local(ish) with the Fuel transfer.

[richpittman]

Rich lets hope this covers Yeovilton next Week.
But as i see it at present VL shuts at 5 and dont re open for Night flying til 9:45.

Thats a large proportion still with the ex on and VL shut

[Seaking93]

Thing is, they would need a vast ground support to do it at Fairford, i.e flying in plane loads of support equipment, ground crews, vehicles etc and thats why they planned on using RAF/RN airfields as its all there already.
That first sortie which went into Lyneham was a "planned" practice divert to Yeovilton, the pilot was a bit taken back when London Mil said it was closed and said "this is where the carrier has sent me tonight".

Pity no one told Yeovilton that it was 'planned'

[RichC]

Forgot, Yeovilton didn't know the exercise was on, did they and that the carrier needs a divert base for fuel situations.

[ranger703]

Appears to have been a monumental cock-up somehwere within the exercise planning! If there are late night ops planned then a suitable land base option should have been in place for all players, regardless of whether they required it in emergency or not(whats going to happen if there is an incident on ship and its not available for recoveries?). I find it hard to believe that this was not the case. Weekend flying had obviously been planned for a long time hence SPTA,Chivenor etc being available and ground troops(JTAC's) working with the jets. Why is Yeovilton not remaining open? Why is there not a diversion alternate other than the MDA of Lyneham which appears to have an issue if the aircraft has not declared an emergency? As people have mentioned this is a workup for the Bush and its Airwing prior to heading east,not much of a workup if the jets have no playtime when they eventually arrive at their operating area's!

We had no such problems in the north of Scotland a few years ago when we hosted the Enterprise on Joint Warrior.

[RichC]

Hi Ranger
This is exactly what i've been trying to say but some people seem to think it's the Bush that is in the wrong and nothing has been planned and they are just turning up at locations.
It doesn't work like that in the UK. You can't just turn up and expect something to be done. It's all planned beforehand, or in this case, as you say and i have before, it is one big cock up.
Hard to believe Yeovilton "not knowing" that F18s would need to divert for fuel, considering this was on the cards weeks before the darn exercise because culdrose couldn't handle them.
Today i heard that the USN wanted Chivenor but obviously that can't be done. They seem pretty desperate at the moment for fuel divert locations, and the RAF and RN are simply not delivering just because its a darn weekend.

The Ex started off on the wrong footing to begin with, delayed massively due to weather, and of course the weather at the moment/fog at times couple with the fuel transfer problems and hardly any time over the Ex areas due to no Aerial Refuelling, i don't think they will come back again. It's not in their interest if they can't train for war.

[ranger703]

I couldn't agree more with you Rich, although as far as I'm aware the exercise started exactly on time and as planned. Unfortunately I can't see them conducting a similar exercise in the SW again,sounds like a lot of wasted sorties. I do hope I am wrong and the planners get their act together soonest and organise a suitable refuelling facility.