Base Closure Annoucement

Anyone heard any more speculation/information on when it's rumoured to be? It seemed to be the generally held belief that it would be 'after the Scottish elections', but I haven't seen anything that mentions a specific date.

Is it now a straight fight between Lossie and Leuchars, and possibly one other?

 

[Craig855s]

As SSH says, It's not hard to turn Lossie into the Q airfield and the MEDA airfield. The MEDA work is being carried out at Brize as we speak since Lynham won't be doing that job any more.

As for Q, Again I'm a person that understands it having spent 4 years on F3s. Easily done from Lossie. The jets will intercept bears quicker from lossie anyway. As for airliners that have "radio trouble"..well that depends where it happens, it may be quicker or slightly slower to make it to them from Lossie. A highjacked airliner on the other hand...That depends entirely on when and where it is hijacked, and at what point the controllers become aware and call the scramble wether the jets will make it in time...but thats the case with leuchars anyway, if the airliner is taken when its 10 miles out from EDI then it can be used as a flying bomb long before QRA make it there regardless of where they take off from

 

[Zeebad]

Coal face? If your definition is not direct daily support to Herrick 24/7 for the last 4 years then I guess I am not on the coal face. One of three people on the goat that can say that.

As for Q, yes, I have done Q shifts and plenty of them. I also understand airspace, speed, distance, time calculations. Finally a MEDA is just that - a few sections 24 hour manned. I have done more MEDA shifts than you can shake a crappy stick at.

Is this drama queen x factor? Herrick qualifies you as what? One of the 3? Hope nobody goes sick while you are on leave. Should I be saving your quotes to my documents.... ? You seem to be very comfortable and full of your own self importance, is that due to your longevity or ability? Q, I am now surprised you can spell it; be honest, you struggled during physics lessons. As far as MEDA, how long were your shifts and how many whole weekends a month did you work? The funny thing is that most of the points I have addressed, in this post seem to be circumnavigated ? To many people happy to have a pop at RAF Fife! We are all on the same team. We All strive to be happy. It is a shame what gives some people happiness mick et al.

 

[Zeebad]

As SSH says, It's not hard to turn Lossie into the Q airfield and the MEDA airfield. The MEDA work is being carried out at Brize as we speak since Lynham won't be doing that job any more.

As for Q, Again I'm a person that understands it having spent 4 years on F3s. Easily done from Lossie. The jets will intercept bears quicker from lossie anyway. As for airliners that have "radio trouble"..well that depends where it happens, it may be quicker or slightly slower to make it to them from Lossie. A highjacked airliner on the other hand...That depends entirely on when and where it is hijacked, and at what point the controllers become aware and call the scramble wether the jets will make it in time...but thats the case with leuchars anyway, if the airliner is taken when its 10 miles out from EDI then it can be used as a flying bomb long before QRA make it there regardless of where they take off from

You do not have clue, sounds like you are an armourer on said platform.

 

[Zeebad]

Oh and how is it someone's misfortunes? It's called life in a blue suit. Not my problem that you have probably spent your whole life there! As you have said, you took the Queen's shilling, pay back time!

"Misfortunes", what you talkin about willis? That phrase, " life in a blue suit", roughly translated: I can not manage! Who said it was your problem? By " pay back time", do you mean people at Leuchars are not pulling their weight or me?

 

[Zeebad]

One bloke in the engine bay there turned down his crown twice because it involved a posting away from his beloved Leuchars. Daft tw@ts offered him it a third time with a posting on station a couple of years later.:S

"One bloke", says it all. Sad thing is he may have had PT due to things we hope will never happen.

 

[SirSaltyHelmet]

"Misfortunes", what you talkin about willis?

I was quoting you here

surely you don't need to look down on peoples misfortunes to make yourself feel better or have you got the same view as Mick with the big BUT in his sentence!

If you are saying that it is someone's misfortue that RAF Fife is closing then hey ho - it is life in a blue suit, you take the money, you take what they give you. It is quite simple really.

I am not full of my own importance, I was merely stating that you dont have to be on a Q base to be on the coal face. If your time has been F3 and now Typhoon then you have worked some really crappy dets I bet.

As far as MEDA goes I have done two bases that covered MEDA, and they both inolved a 4 watch shift pattern, so yeah I think I worked my share of shifts. At the moment I work 6 on 3 off - how many weekends is that a month on average?

If you think Q is that much of a problem then explain your reasoning. Looks to me that RAF Fife to Lossie is about 80nm. Working on the theory of 420 kts which is the average speed used by our fast and pointy things then it's 11 mins. Even at 500kts its and extra 9 mins 30 secs from Lossie to Fife and thats assuming the bad boy is coming from the south or 90 degree angle from Leuchars. In the grand scheme of things it doesnt really matter where the Q is held, at those speeds its all negligible. So if you tell me the snags, it may help me understand, as you have intimated, I struggle with being a bit dense - physics scares me, as does the later letters of the alphabet.

 

[Toffee-Scouser]

the typhoons only get 20 minutes in the air without a fuel tank though, so If Q north had to cover Q south then coming from Lossie to London, even if you go directly down the coast as soon as you get there you will have to refuel. and thats assuming they can even keep the runway open at lossie.
For the record I'm abit gutted RAF Fife is closing, but I'm just going to get on with it and get posted somewhere else.

 

[Mickwreay]

One bloke in the engine bay there turned down his crown twice because it involved a posting away from his beloved Leuchars. Daft tw@ts offered him it a third time with a posting on station a couple of years later.:S

I know exactly who you mean!
He's out now.

 

[Realist78]

"One bloke", says it all. Sad thing is he may have had PT due to things we hope will never happen.

I said 'one bloke' merely as an example of one that I definitely knew about and no, it wasn't PT, he simply refused to accept that he could be posted elsewhere. Why all the noise about Leuchars closing? Other Stations have before, live with it and move on, Leuchars is not special!

 

[Craig855s]

the typhoons only get 20 minutes in the air without a fuel tank though, so If Q north had to cover Q south then coming from Lossie to London, even if you go directly down the coast as soon as you get there you will have to refuel. and thats assuming they can even keep the runway open at lossie.
For the record I'm abit gutted RAF Fife is closing, but I'm just going to get on with it and get posted somewhere else.

Surely covering London from Leuchars wouldnt leave the Typhoons with much fuel left to actually shadow the target for any matter of time.

how much external fuel is carried on a Q load? (I remember F3s carried large jugs (4500KGs))

If it was "impossible" to make Lossie the MEDA or if it was "too risky" to put Q at Lossie, I'm sure the people in charge of the defense of UK air space (and the MEDA decision makers) would have protested to the point at which this wouldnt have gona ahead.. But it is going ahead, which means they're happy to live with Lossie being the MEDA and Q base.

As a side note I've had a pax trip in an F3 and we took off from Leu and flew to Lossie for a "visual recovery and overshoot" and it took less than 20 minutes to get there from the moment we left the runway. And we were flying over land at a relatively low speed

 

[roslin]

QRA in Central Scotland/ NE England

QRA in Central Scotland/ NE England

The problem with Lossiemouth as QRA base is that given the nature of what is the highest potential air threat is up North is those few vital seconds from the high value targets further away than Leuchars. I have no reason to doubt that a mullah or two is aware of that.

 

[SirSaltyHelmet]

Yeah and Man didn't land on the moon, the earth is flat and Justin Bieber is a boy!

 

[Craig855s]

The problem with Lossiemouth as QRA base is that given the nature of what is the highest potential air threat is up North is those few vital seconds from the high value targets further away than Leuchars. I have no reason to doubt that a mullah or two is aware of that.

thing is a mullah with any brains woulld know that Leuchars could have jets on their ass as soon as they were rumbled, so they'd "try" to take the jet so close to "target" that the tiffies wouldnt catch them no matter where they took off from. But as we know, it's not possible to take an airliner any more.

 

[Pikey735]

The problem with having Q at lossie is that theres no Q building....... More £ down the toilet in this 'cost saving' measure (and no, you cant do Q out of a HPS, you get folk tripping over each other trying to get out the doors!!). You also have the issue of the IT Infrastructure (critical for typhoon ops), tie down points for high power EGR's and finally how much ££ BAE are going to want to re-negotiate the support contract. These are just a few of the things that are going to need sorted for typhoon to operate out of there.......... Meh.

 

[Downsizer]

Yeah and Man didn't land on the moon, the earth is flat and Justin Bieber is a boy!

What news of Elvis and Jim Morrison?

 

[SirSaltyHelmet]

The problem with having Q at lossie is that theres no Q building....... More £ down the toilet in this 'cost saving' measure (and no, you cant do Q out of a HPS, you get folk tripping over each other trying to get out the doors!!). You also have the issue of the IT Infrastructure (critical for typhoon ops), tie down points for high power EGR's and finally how much ££ BAE are going to want to re-negotiate the support contract. These are just a few of the things that are going to need sorted for typhoon to operate out of there.......... Meh.

Which is obviously cheaper than closing Lossie and leaving Leuchars open.

 

[Tin basher]

What news of Elvis?

Off Topic There's a guy works down the chipshop..... Off Topic

 

[grumpyoldb]

I don't remember all this whinge bagging when Brawdy closed, or Colt, or Finningley, or St Mawgan.

The RAF has been drawing down since the end of WW2 and will continue to do so unless we get a major northern european conflict which threatens to invade our shores. Then the sh!te will hit the fan.

 

[mild mannered janitor]

leuchars as an RAF station will be no more, it's that simple accept it fcuking deal with it and get on with it!!

no amount of moaning is going to stop it so why not move on, look to the future and put the handbags away and stop fcuking crying about it!

 

[BillyBunter]

The problem with having Q at lossie is that theres no Q building.......

Yes there is , when Leuchars boltholed to Lossie few years back they operated Q as there is a few HAS that have the relevant license. If they were that bothered about Mullah and his airliners crashing into Scotland or attacking from the North im sure the Q would have went to Leeming if that was high on there concern.
Obviousley not ....