Exercise at RAF Mildenhall 27th February 2018

[tazmin88]

inhaled too much Jet A fumes perhaps

[Blue Diamond]

just taxied

Thanks. Now I understand what banter meant by “elephant walk.”

[slogen51]

Quid 01 flight is lining up to depart

Quid 12 taxi to park

[slogen51]

10:54 quid 01/02 departed : tails 38871 and 00333

[BossHogg]

Very impressed.As stated earlier,once in a lifetime.We were at 'Johns Field' and they just kept on coming! I'd imagine it looked even better head on from 29.The memory of Daisy polishing my Cadillac has been demoted to No.2

[BOLLO]

Flight of 6 now departing so more like twice in a life time

[slogen51]

Bit like the old style TacEval at a fighter base

Sapper 31 two ship just launched from Lakenheath

[graham luxton]

Wish I'd been there to see that although I've seen practice KC-135 scrambles at both Mildenhall and Fairford before but that was during their SAC days - never as many as yesterday though and they never left the ground. During the height of the `Cold War` practise scrambles by the B-47 `Reflex` alert force sometimes took place under the code word "Coco" alert which saw the a/c taxi in a long line, usually down the runway and then return to parking. "Coco's" were rarely called due to concerns about the stress on the undercarriage, when taxiing heavyweight combat configured bombers from/to
their Alert areas. If you were lucky enough to see it, as I did at Greenham Common and Upper Heyford its a memory of the `Cold War` that really sticks in the mind.

[slogen51]

Bet there are a fair amount of people on here thinking " I wish I could have gone to Upper Heyford in the sixties"

I assume you could get down the lane that runs across the railway to the end of runway 27 - it was impressive watching swingers line up from there , although we did rather take them for granted.

In the 90s I was on an organised tour Inside DM and the guy who was in charge was our guide and he was a former Stratojet pilot. He stressed that DM is not a bone yard.

[graham luxton]

Bet there are a fair amount of people on here thinking " I wish I could have gone to Upper Heyford in the sixties"

I assume you could get down the lane that runs across the railway to the end of runway 27 - it was impressive watching swingers line up from there , although we did rather take them for granted.

In the 90s I was on an organised tour Inside DM and the guy who was in charge was our guide and he was a former Stratojet pilot. He stressed that DM is not a bone yard.

Yes, I had some good trips to 'Heyford back then. You could go down the lane over the railway no problem and the other end had a public footpath leading down to the 09 touch down area which was good as well. Both ends just had a wooden, waist high fence around them - a photographers dream and Security Police nightmare! It was like that to prevent something from being too badly damaged in case it went off the end of the runway. All the Reflex B-47's were parked South side in two Alert areas. One, West of the Air Traffic Control tower (which was known as the SAC ramp with RB-47,RC/KC-135's parked on it in the Voodoo and F-111 days) had 10 parking spots while the rest were dispersed to the East of the tower. The most I saw on alert was 19 - the limit was 20, otherwise they couldn't all be launched within 15 minutes of the Alert klaxon sounding. Thankfully they never launched, otherwise we may not have been here discussing how good it used to be!

[BossHogg]

Video now on Youtube under 'Raf Mildenhall Elephant Walk'

[dave_b5678]

Thanks for the link - great video! Never seen that many on the runway before. Did note there were several up that day, and heard them on scanner