Bear Hunting - part 1 - Tony Cunnane's Life and Times

Above: Log book extract showing the flights associated with this particular operational detachment to RAF Leuchars in August 1975. I was OC the Victor Standardisation Unit at the time but occasionally offered my services as Detachment Commander to one of the squadrons for 'Dragonfly' duties. Note especially the line detailing the flight when we hit c150 seabirds on take-off.

Low flying birds – the feathered variety – have always been a hazard to low flying aircraft – particularly fast low flying jet aircraft. Aero engines tend to object if they are forced to swallow birds at high speed. The high-precision blades at the front end of jet engines are quite fragile and it needs only one blade to be bent or broken off and the whole compressor is likely to be thrown out of balance and then anything might happen. Another hazard is that the bird, if it is large enough, might smash through the pilot’s canopy and injure the pilot or impair his or her vision. My crew once had a very lucky escape involving birds.

For many years the RAF, as part of its commitment to NATO, had been required to intercept all Soviet aircraft infringing the vast expanse of sky known as NATO Area 12, which stretched from the UK westwards halfway across the Atlantic Ocean and as far north as our fuel would take us. The idea was that our air defence fighter aircraft would intercept any Soviet aircraft and fly alongside to let the crew see that they had been intercepted. The Soviet aircraft were not breaking any rules by flying in Area 12: the British Government just wanted to let the Soviet Government know that we knew where they were.

These operations, correctly known as Operation Dragonfly, were colloquially known as ‘Bear Hunting’ because the Soviet aircraft were usually the long-range TU-95 bombers and reconnaissance aircraft known collectively to NATO by the codeword Bear. These airborne meetings were usually quite friendly even though the Cold War at that time was still in one of its sub-zero phases.

Every now and again journalists and photographers were invited along as passengers either in the Tanker or in the back seat of the fighter to see what we and the Soviets were up to. (For a few weeks in mid-1973 'Dragonfly' was changed to 'Suffrage'. Presumably someone in authority thought it was time to change the codeword for security reasons. However, Suffrage was so unpopular that the operation soon reverted to its earlier, long-standing name. In any case the codeword had always been unclassified; only the meaning was classified at that time.)

The fighters employed on these operations were usually, but not always, those based at RAF Leuchars near St Andrews in Scotland. The Leuchars fighters were preferred because the Soviet aircraft almost invariably came down from the north – either from the direction of Iceland or from around North Cape, the extreme northern tip of Norway.

The fighters were, at different times, F3 and F6 Lightnings and F4 Phantoms, and whenever possible the fighters were accompanied by Victor tankers to enable them to refuel in flight and so stay on task longer. This was particularly important when the fighters were the early Mark 3 Lightnings; they could fly very fast but not very far. Lightning Mark 3 pilots were often heard to comment that they were short of fuel as soon as they got airborne. Of course, the later marks of Lightning and the Phantom had much better operating ranges but, nevertheless, it was always comforting for them to have a tanker nearby especially when operating far from land.

Sometimes, when there were indications far enough in advance that Soviet aircraft might be coming, the tankers were themselves detached to Leuchars from Marham. When that happened we were put ‘on state’ as it was known, as soon as possible after we arrived at Leuchars. This meant that we could be ordered airborne very quickly when needed. For example, with our tanker parked on an apron which was both close to the Officers’ Mess and the start of the runway, we could be summoned from bed and be airborne well within half an hour. On the other hand, we could be held on standby in the dispersal hut close by the aircraft and from there we could easily be airborne in less than ten minutes after the scramble message.

Go to part 2 of this story