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Post by COLIN SHIPTON-KNIGHT on Jan 31, 2009 19:59:48 GMT
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Post by sloegin57 on Jan 31, 2009 23:20:11 GMT
Yep - the Saudi's did - during the punch up with Yemen and again towards the end of the things service at Tabouk. When I left Kingdom in 2000, the pods were in Supply Depot at Dhahran together with gun-tanks, fwd fuel tanks, fins and aload of stuff they got from the Kuwaitis years before. As I recall - only four were wired up to operate the pod but that means digging out my Tabouk diaries
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Post by COLIN SHIPTON-KNIGHT on Feb 1, 2009 19:57:02 GMT
Dennis,
So I have to find a 1/48 Lightning and add it to the pile then..?
Seen the photo, seems to good to be true, a Lightning PR......
Love to see any more photos...
Colin
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Post by sloegin57 on Feb 1, 2009 20:15:49 GMT
Dennis, So I have to find a 1/48 Lightning and add it to the pile then..? Seen the photo, seems to good to be true, a Lightning PR...... Love to see any more photos... Colin Yep ! You do (saves me doin it - Heh! Heh!) - 'orrible thing - the Frightening and the kits aren't much better. |
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Post by sloegin57 on Feb 1, 2009 20:39:10 GMT
No personal pix - didn't want to lose my head !   I'll sort dates of use out and serials later and put a write up here and at Britmodeller. Must be careful ref this subject or else I'l be back on the Citalopram - 60mg should do I think. DR |
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Post by reccephreak on Feb 1, 2009 21:01:53 GMT
Great info there, DR! ;D
Larry
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Post by sloegin57 on Feb 1, 2009 21:06:28 GMT
Great info there, DR! ;D Larry You emigrated to this side now Larry - or are you just ambidextrous ? - PM inbound DR |
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Post by reccephreak on Feb 1, 2009 22:17:28 GMT
Great info there, DR! ;D Larry You emigrated to this side now Larry - or are you just ambidextrous ? - PM inbound DR I just bounce all over the internet. Always in search of more info on recce aircraft. Larry |
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Post by Julien on Feb 2, 2009 0:10:04 GMT
Larry is the original Lurker!
Julien
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Post by heimdall on Feb 8, 2009 8:44:54 GMT
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Post by sloegin57 on Feb 8, 2009 10:42:55 GMT
Bruce, A very good article but I regret that I must disagree with your last paragraph. The RSAF had four sets and four aircraft hard wired to operate them - all F53's - the T55's were not capable. Their use was very limited but they were used at least twice before I joined the contract and then once in August 1985 - but more later. Dennis |
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Post by heimdall on Feb 8, 2009 17:56:24 GMT
Sloegin57
Thanks for the information - very different to what I found in various books on the Lightning! The article has been updated.
Bruce
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Post by sloegin57 on Feb 9, 2009 5:24:46 GMT
Hi All,
I was quite surprised recently, when the question of the RSAF Lightning’s being Recce capable was raised on the Web. Surprised, that is, until I realised that it was almost forty years since the export version of the aircraft was first unveiled at Farnborough and some twenty-three years since the aircraft went out of service, most returned to the UK and I transferred from the Magic Palm contract to the Hawks of the Al Yamama contract. In that time, of course, a whole new generation of enthusiasts and modelers have emerged and by my calculations any modeler under the tender age of fifty may not have heard of them.
The question has been raised, "Did the RSAF ever used the Lightning in the Recce role?” The answer to that is “Yes - but in a very limited capacity".
I arrived at Tabuk in 1983, just two and a bit years before the aircraft were returned to the UK. During that time I picked up quite a few stories about the aircraft, some no doubt apocryphal, from the "Old hands" that had been in Kingdom since the contract started with Airworks Ltd back in 1969.
The first occasion on which the recce pod was used appears to have been during the late 60's and early 70's Egyptian backed, Yemeni based Uprising in the south of the country in conjunction with a festering border dispute with the latter which I believe still carries on today. Based at Khamis Mushayt in south west Saudi Arabia, the Lightnings were used primarily for ground-attack and in a very limited capacity for armed recce. How many sorties were flown I do not know. Whether they were flown by the few British Instructors out there or by the Pakistan Air Force pilots that had been brought in I do not know either.
The second occasion during which the pod was used appears to have been just after the 2nd Squadron arrived at Tabuk. Tabuk, in the North Western Province of Saudi Arabia, is not far from the Gulf of Aqaba, at the northern end of which the borders of four Middle Eastern countries meet Saudi Arabia, Jordon, Israel and Egypt and thus, is a highly sensitive area both politically and militarily. The alleged use of a Lightning equipped with a recce pod appears to have been around 1980/81 and could well have been associated with the Israeli Occupation and subsequent withdrawal from the Sinai desert which finally occurred in 1982.
There were a few stories doing the rounds of BAC employees regarding these sorties over Sinai - most of which were probably apocryphal. There are one or two which may have a kernel of truth but judiciously embellished in the telling in one of the many "facilities" at Tabuk.
The third occasion during which the pod was used was during the last week of August 1985; at around the same time as the then future Al Yamama contract was announced. Tabuk had started out as a mud brick village in the middle of nowhere on the edge of the vast Great Nafud desert at an altitude of some 3000 feet. In 1985, the local Emir of Tabuk as part of the Saudi Governments policy of "persuading" the Bedouin to settle in towns and villages built or expanded just for that purpose and give up their nomadic lifestyle and complete disregard for such mundane matters as borders and especially man made laws - was advised that a survey of the area was required for future planning. Many roads had already been built linking the town with outlying artesian well pumping stations, which supplied the area with its water, and other small outposts in the desert but due to their infrequent use, the frequent sand storms in the area and the propensity for drivers to ignore them and drive in a straight line over the desert to their destinations the roads had, over time, become completely covered with sand and effectively "lost". For various reasons, no maps had been made so when a grader leveling the desert to lay a new road out to a pumping station collided with a strip of tarmac some two feet under the desert (the road to the pumping station had already been laid some years before but "forgotten" about), the authorities decided that a full aerial survey of the Tabuk area was required.
By this time (late August '85) the F-5E's of the 15th Squadron had already moved into Tabuk at the start of their take over from the Lightnings. They had already assumed QRA duties and we were in the process of starting to pack up non-essential equipment for onward dispatch to Dhahran where it would be put into storage. Although the RSAF had then recently acquired some half a dozen or so RF-5E's, these were restricted to operate south of a line of latitude running through Riyadh (I believe) and so could not carry out the survey. According to my diary, it was aircraft 201 (53-668) that was fitted with the recce pack and over the course of the week covered the area required. The pack and film was down loaded on a daily basis and on completion of the survey, the pack was removed and placed back in storage.
That, I am afraid, is virtually the sum total of my knowledge of the use of the recce pod in RSAF service. There may have been other occasions when the pack was installed and used but I am not aware of them. I do not think that the Kuwaiti Air Force had them, but there is a distinct possibility, knowing as I do of the Saudi's reluctance to throw things away, that they may well be still in existence.
In 1999, just before I finally left the Kingdom, I was a Superintendent on the Hawk 65/65A's at Dhahran. The brake parachutes for the Hawks were beginning to run out of useful life and I was trying to ascertain whether or not the RSAF had any squirreled away in Depot Supply, a large department that held spares for virtually the entire RSAF and very strictly out of bounds non-Saudis on security grounds. Having finally obtained through various "diplomatic" means a pass to enter Depot Supply and on the strict understanding that my visit was to be escorted at all times and that I was only to be allowed into a certain pre-designated area, I entered the place.
The Chief Warrant Officer assigned to be my escort was a Saudi that I had known at Tabuk and who had been universally known as "Ya-Ya". Like most, he had initially enlisted in the RSAF for five years but was still awaiting his discharge papers some twenty years later. He took me to the area where the brake parachutes were stored and there, neatly labeled and on racks were twenty chutes. Unfortunately, as I as diplomatically as possible pointed out, the chutes in store were Lightning chutes and regrettably of no use to the Hawks. I ventured some surprise that the RSAF still had Lightning spares some fourteen years after the aircraft had returned to the UK.
Ya-Ya then indicated that they had more and took me to a shed to the rear of Depot Supply and about a half an acre in area within which, neatly stacked, labeled and stored were all the spares that had been sent down from Tabuk way back in 1986. Tank cradles, missile trolleys, hydraulic jacks, compressors, air conditioning trolleys, hydraulic rigs were all there and at the back of the shed were two spare fins (minus the fin caps), missile packs, landing gear nose and main, landing gear closing doors, two spare mainplanes still crated, at least half a dozen spare tail planes, even more rudders, canopies still in their protective covering. There were spare mainplane leading edge panels, at least two sets of spine panels, centre ventral fuel tanks, forward ventral fuel tanks, forward ventral gun tanks, oddly enough no rear ventral fuel tanks but scattered amongst all of this were, still on their handling trolleys, the four recce packs minus cameras. I remember thinking at the time that if Christmas were legal in Saudi Arabia, then for Lightning conservationists - it was here.
It is probably all still there, although looking at photos on the web of preserved Lightnings in Kingdom it would appear that the RSAF have used some of it, although not necessarily in the correct context!
I had hoped to finish this off with details of the RSAF colour scheme and variations but I'll put that up later once I am satisfied with it. Forget your polished metal - think Aluminium and Duralumin !!
So there you are. To my certain knowledge, the recce packs were either sold or gifted to the RSAF and used - definitely once and most probably at least twice before. No doubt sometime in the future some armchair author will state that "a solitary source claims that the recce packs were used but this is unsubstantiated". To which this "solitary source" will reply, "Were you there?"
As promised to Colin S-K, this rambling missive has also been posted on Britmodeller
DR
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Post by popeye on Feb 9, 2009 9:16:27 GMT
Dennis,
Acclamations and thanks !
Keep going rambling like this - absolutely fascinating reading.
And I hope your recount will be taken up by Spyflight and/or Airrece for "safeguarding" on a dedicated database !
Good modelling, Rolf
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Post by sloegin57 on Feb 9, 2009 17:28:26 GMT
Dennis, Acclamations and thanks ! Keep going rambling like this - absolutely fascinating reading. And I hope your recount will be taken up by Spyflight and/or Airrece for "safeguarding" on a dedicated database ! Good modelling, Rolf Thanks Rolf - just trying to prove with all my diverse ramblings that your idea regarding a dedicated "Recce" Website is a good one!!.  So when do you intend to start!!  Dennis |
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Aug 1, 2020 15:06:20 GMT