Talk about playing ball! That second stayed welllllllll low! Looked awesome on the feed. Potential for some incredible pics from anyone at the 27 end.

Someone mentioned (not here) chat of taxying to the hotpit (northside). Possibly a first exposure for a local hotpit crew to a living, breathing Bone, before things get underway?

It was intended to be a nod of respect in the squadron's 80th anniversary year (409 Nighthawk Squadron, formed at nearby RAF Digby in 1941).

UK COVID restrictions were the cause of the change of plans. As has been suggested above, they will now route via Ramstein instead.

80-1066 was BLACK02

Fantastic, gents! Thank you so much. Have got quite a bit on for the next week or so, but I'll definitely come back to this after that.

Thanks again.

Morning all, Having completed a bit more work on this, a few more queries have raised their heads: Would LTW have used ASCOT or tactical callsigns? 32 Sqn & Queens Flight? Seem to recall KITTYHAWK (still current), RAINBOW + ASCOT in use, but were they used in the mid-80s, or would they have used tac...

Dick - you, sir, are an absolute legend! Thank you so much for taking the time time to list all of that (and your previous post)! It's hugely appreciated. At some point (hopefully, if we get to that stage), it might become clear why I'm interested :-)

Thanks again. You've been a massive help!

Thank you very much!

Oh, one more question, Vulcan, was the format of the tactical callsigns always number-letter-letter-number-number? ie never R8E41? And am I correct in thinking the first three characters were issued to a base for a set period of time (48 hrs?) before being replaced with a new prefix?

That's great! Thank you very much!

Gents, once again looking to bring some of this stuff together. Thank you for everything you've shared so far, but I still have more than a few gaps in my knowledge! Trigraphs were mentioned earlier. Were they used instead of or in addition to three letter singleton prefixes, like "CTM" (later "COT"...

Wow, Dick! That's awesome! Thank you so much! Apologies for the delayed response - have been busy with something else.

Thanks also, FP!

Greatly appreciated, guys!

Have dug out the following 48th TFW callsigns from the '80s from various sources so far (including some above - again, thank you! :-) ) : AUSTIN, CUPPY, BADGER, STAG, GYPSY, JAZZ, SPEED, DUSTY, RAIDER, CHEVY, HAMMER, RAMROD, STAG, BARBER, BOLAR. Anybody able to put squadrons to them? Also, ZUNI & BO...

Excellent again, Shuck! Thank you! Lots of them ring bells!

Good stuff, gents, thanks! OLD and POKEY bring back lots of memories. Don't remember OUTWAY, but E-3s were super rare for us.

PS + AXE for the 10th ACCS.

Thanks, Malcolm! I think we thought Mildenhall's were DOLBY! Live and learn!

Thanks very much, both!

Cheers, Andy!

You've reminded me of a couple more regular visitors: 57 FIS = ARNO, 26th TRW = UTAH, 36th TFW = EAGLE (very original)

Thanks, Shuck! BADGER and STAG definitely ring bells as F-111 era-callsigns as well - possibly TREST, too.

Inspired by the excellent post down the page about callsigns used by the F-111s of RAF Upper Heyford's 20th TFW, I wonder if anybody is able to assist with similar lists for some other bases for a project I'm working on, please? Alconbury used to be my regular haunt as a child, and I remember SALEM,...