Typhoon jet shoots down drone of Syria

[Alf]

Will the RAF call this its first kill since 1948 or do drones not count. (I know the F4 v Jag incident but shooting your own side down is just silly)

Didn't a RAF Javelin bring down an Indonesian C-130 in the mid 1960s?

[Vulcanone]

Never officially confirmed If I recall....

[Alf]

Never officially confirmed If I recall....

The list of C-130 losses just has it as..

"September 3, 1964: C-130B T-1307 of the Indonesian Air Force and operated by 31 Squadron crashed into the Straits of Malacca whilst evading interception by a Royal Air Force Javelin FAW.9 of 60 Squadron from RAF Tengah. This was the first non-U.S. Hercules hull loss."

[T_J]

Will the RAF call this its first kill since 1948

During the first Gulf War a RAF Tornado plastered an Iraqi runway just as a MiG was taking off. The crew claimed that counted as an air - air victory and wanted the kill painted on the fuselage.

It was a Mirage F.1. Recently re-confirmed in the book Tornado by John Nichol. The mission was against Al Asad airbase. The Tornado crews were astounded when they approached the base and everthing was lit up with an aircraft in the circuit with strobe lights on. One Tornado crew on the run in found themseleves looking up at an aircraft with anti-collision lights on. They attempted to get a lock on with an AIM-9 Sidewinder but failed to get a lock. On the run in to deliver their JP233s the airfield was still fully lit up and the crew elected to deliver manually. The pilot noticed the Mirage F.1 landing and began dispensing the JP233s over the top of it.

[Arthur Tee]

I strongly suspect that this too may have been a RAF shoot down:

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/20/worl ... antic.html

I remember watching John Cravens Newsround where they were interviewing a Phantom crew from RAF Wildenrath. The crew stated they flew alongside for some time “but didn’t see any occupants - so that made our job easier”.

About an hour later the same interview was shown on the six o’clock news - but the “made our job easier”comment had been cut.

How does not seeing occupants make your job easier?

I’ll let you make of that what you will…

Arthur

[skippyscage]

because if it veered off course or started to descend or run out of fuel, they would no doubt have been asked to shoot it down over a sparsely populated area - if they could see the pilots who were presumably passed out due to hypoxia, then it would have been harder for the aircrew to "pull the trigger"

In any case it crashed into the sea after running out if fuel, so the RAF didn't shoot it down anyway.

[lmgaylard]

David Morgan was with the RAF on Harrier GR3's and then attached to the RN when the Falklands War started and went on to have the most kills in the war.

Technically he was a RN pilot who had gone to the RAF to fly jets, post-war he stayed with the RN until 1991.

[22A]

A tenuous claim. During the Korean war some Meteors built for the RAF were delivered to the Australians instead and one of those had a Mig kill.
As I say tenuous, but it was meant to be a RAF aircraft.

[RAF4EVER]

Will the RAF call this its first kill since 1948

During the first Gulf War a RAF Tornado plastered an Iraqi runway just as a MiG was taking off. The crew claimed that counted as an air - air victory and wanted the kill painted on the fuselage.

It was a Mirage F.1. Recently re-confirmed in the book Tornado by John Nichol. The mission was against Al Asad airbase. The Tornado crews were astounded when they approached the base and everthing was lit up with an aircraft in the circuit with strobe lights on. One Tornado crew on the run in found themseleves looking up at an aircraft with anti-collision lights on. They attempted to get a lock on with an AIM-9 Sidewinder but failed to get a lock. On the run in to deliver their JP233s the airfield was still fully lit up and the crew elected to deliver manually. The pilot noticed the Mirage F.1 landing and began dispensing the JP233s over the top of it.

JP233 was the dispenser
Each JP233 as fitted to the Tornado was divided into a rear section with 30 SG-357 runway cratering submunitions, while the front section carried 215 HB-876 anti-personnel mines. Both types of submunitions were retarded by small parachutes.
I spent 5 years at ML Aviation Slough, building the rear section,the forward section was built at Coventry