The first RAF P8-A Poseidon arrives at Kinloss

[barkingmad]

On seeing the press pics of our shiny new ASW and SAR aircraft I was immediately struck by the lack of winglets.

A short bit of ferreting around produced this article;

https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1398329

I wonder if any ex-kipper fleet folk on this forum would have any further comments, informative or amusing, to make on this topic. Also I’m wondering at the symmetrical bulges on either side of the forward fuselage and can only speculate that they’re cooling air exhaust ducts for the radar which probably generates a few therms when it’s operating.

And I would have thought a low-level high AoB aircraft would have benefitted from retaining the eyebrow windows but they’ve been omitted.

I was never proper kipper-fleet but spent too many hours too low in the crap weather of North Sea and North Atlantic performing 45* AoB turns in a manual flying control aircraft looking for smoke markers, “survivors” in the water and errant fishing boats in the AEW Shackleton whilst marvelling at the analogue AoA indicator on the coaming which was never properly calibrated nor tested and seemed to operate in a different arithmetical universe. Aaaah, halcyon days.......

That venerable beast was reckoned to be the best aIrborne SAR visual search platform due to the number of lookout positions in the design, not least the prone tail lookout position who occasionally was the first and only one to catch sight of whatever target was being sought.

Some more info here;

https://www.naval-technology.com/projects/mma/

[CharlieOneSix]

First RAF P8-A at Kinloss

[Boac]

KINLOSS BARRACKS!!?? WTF??

[Pontius Navigator]

How times have changed at ISK. We used to be able to climb the back gate to get to the Stables for a Stablex. That fence look a quite forbidding. Keep the squadies in an Jock squadie bait out.

[Rossian]

Boac It has been KSS Barracks for a good few years now and the occupants are 39 Regiment Royal Engineers. Why is 120 Sqn going to be at Lossie when there are a lot of suitable buildings at KSS? WTF knows?
It's going to be like Bolthole in reverse - all facilities at Lossie, a/c here, buses at start and end of day?

The Ancient Mariner

[Boac]

"Keep the squadies in an Jock squadie bait out" - translation?

[CharlieOneSix]

The Poseidons will move to Lossie once the £400m upgrade to facilities, including the runway, are completed there. The Typhoons are also temporarily moving to KSS.

Press & Journal - Sept 2019

An RAF spokesman said: “The resurfacing project strengthens and upgrades the runways and other aircraft operating surfaces, ensuring that the Poseidon and other large aircraft can operate from the Moray base for years to come.

[ian16th]

The Poseidons will move to Lossie once the £400m upgrade to facilities, including the runway, are completed there. The Typhoons are also temporarily moving to KSS.

Press & Journal - Sept 2019

An RAF spokesman said: “The resurfacing project strengthens and upgrades the runways and other aircraft operating surfaces, ensuring that the Poseidon and other large aircraft can operate from the Moray base for years to come.

Sounds like Coningsby in 1956.

The station reopened after the upgrade for V-Bombers. We were going to be one of the 1st Victor bases.

57 Sqdn with Canberra B2's came to 'work up' the base.

The Canberra's cracked the new runways!

Me? I was posted to Istres

[barkingmad]

Thanks Admin, tidies up the forum!

I still think the beast looks odd when every other shiny new 21st century craft sport fiddly bits on the wingtips but the de-icing mod would seem to be the reason.

Nobody yet explained the ducts either side at the forward end?

[Ex-Ascot]

I was going to ask how they deliver their weapons but found it: 5 internal bays and 6 external hardpoints for a variety of conventional weapons, e.g. AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER, AGM-84 Harpoon, Mark 54 torpedo, mines, depth charges, and the High Altitude Anti-Submarine Warfare Weapon system.

So guess that they have bomb doors or summat.

Next question, are they going to have aircraft commanders who are not the Captain? If you see what I mean.

[G-CPTN]

[media]https://yaffa-cdn.s3.amazonaws.com/yaff ... _01732.jpg[/media]

[Boac]

Tactical commanders, I guess?

[barkingmad]

Known as Taco’s, not to be confused with the fast food?

In the days when the AEW Nimrod was being considered some wag on 8 Squadron discovered or produced an artist’s impression of the new multi-role craft. It was the standard double-ended dildo ‘frame but sporting a full suite of bomb bay with assorted droppable detection or exploding bits plus the venerable Lindholme multi-seat life raft gear plus a pair of HDU’s trailing behind the wingtips dragging a Tornado F3 on each hose.

Cue much hilarity amongst the assembled old lags on the Shackleton and a sense of humour failure in the higher ranks.

[Pontius Navigator]

The non-maritime tradition is no stick, no vote, but I think there is a definite case for a mission commander. On one operation our Captain, sitting up front admiring the view and watching the gauges asked me what time we had to come off station.

As he had neglected to tell me his future on-station plan I was working out at least three options. One was remain where we are until goes homie time, another was push on as far as we could and a third which was fly back via the Denmark Strait. As mission commander I could have selected just one option and planned accordingly.

OTOH, with our next mission commander down the back who opted to continue prosecuting a submarine the PF said he wanted to have time in hand as the weather at base was crap.

Cut both ways really.

[Ex-Ascot]

PN it has always confused the hell out of me but I think that I understand now. The Taco is in charge of the mission. The Capt is in charge of the aircraft and the safety of all aboard. So at the end of the day the Capt is the boss.

OK, who signs the authorisation sheets? Both?

[Rwy in Sight]

PN it has always confused the hell out of me but I think that I understand now. The Taco is in charge of the mission. The Capt is in charge of the aircraft and the safety of all aboard. So at the end of the day the Capt is the boss.

OK, who signs the authorisation sheets? Both?

Ex-Ascot, last November on Air Force's patron day I had a very similar conversation wit a AEW aircraft captain. He explained though that the commander of the radar crew (if I can call him that) and the Aircraft commander decide together if the mission assign is possible and how it can be flown safely.

[Rossian]

Somehow or other I lost my detailed reply to your question Ex-A.
The short answer to your very last point is, when I was a non-pilot captain I signed the auth sheet and for the A/c in the F700. Back then the RAF said that captaincy was non-divisible and, yes, when it went wrong in whatever dept, I carried the can. In a similar fashion if there was a monumental balls up on the nav dept the pilot captain would be fronted up to answer for it.
My main point in my earlier non post was the essential need for good communication in both directions.

The Ancient Mariner

[Ex-Ascot]

Somehow or other I lost my detailed reply to your question Ex-A.
The short answer to your very last point is, when I was a non-pilot captain I signed the auth sheet and for the A/c in the F700. Back then the RAF said that captaincy was non-divisible and, yes, when it went wrong in whatever dept, I carried the can. In a similar fashion if there was a monumental balls up on the nav dept the pilot captain would be fronted up to answer for it.
My main point in my earlier non post was the essential need for good communication in both directions.

The Ancient Mariner

Thanks AM. It all sounds very nebulous to me. Glad I was never Kipper Fleet. Any problems I would have got out of the seat and said OK Captain it is all yours.

[barkingmad]

I sincerely hope the new crews are out this weekend of Storm Ciara exercising their crosswind and gale force handling skills?

To paraphrase Basil Fawlty, “Whatever you do, don’t mention Vref+20kts! I did but I think I got away with it?”

My memories of takeoffs and landings at Moray Firth airfields, in strong westerly or Sou’westerly winds with a touch of orographic turbulence off the mountains are still vivid after 4 decades.

Otherwise those pesky Russians will be slipping through the Iceland-Scotland gap without interference and hopefully there’ll be no SAR cover required.

[Pontius Navigator]

The Kipper Fleet crew on the Nimrod had the flight deck crew, the Tactical team led by the Tac Nav (usually swapped between both navs trip and trip about), then the sensor team led by the AEO, and Wet and Dry teams each with their own leader, usually a warrant officer.

One of my captains was a very experienced pilot and flight commander. Of three I would rate him third. Then a Nav captain who won one of the competitions (I think the international one). He had the killer instinct lacking in the pilot. The last was an AEO, ex V-Force, and flight commander. Together with the killer instinct he had an encyclopedic knowledge of the tactics manual. ATP1 and AXP5 together with some other sneaky books. He was the best.

As Rossian will attest, ASW was as much an art as a science.