Military Concorde

[Jemiba]

Please back to the Military Concorde !

ABM may be relevant here in a way, but probably as an annotation only.
And if it leads to discussions, where we have to read words like "insult" again,
it definitely shouldn't be widened here !

 

[litzj]

is there possibility to get bombcorde for RAF?

RAF cancel the tsr 2 due to its cost...

Concorde has advantage over tsr 2 for saving development cost, but it is larger and seems to be

more expensive aircraft than tsr2

 

[sferrin]

Errm.... a well informed source told me in the 80s that the SA-5 was only a credible threat if the warhead comprised Instant Sunshine. (Fuzing??)

US Nike-Hercules had nuclear warheads too.

Side note there were 2,550 nuclear warheads built just for the Hercules force. (Talos, Bomarc, and Terrier also had the nuclear option.)

 

[Arjen]

To quote the Magrathean Customer Service:

It is most gratifying that your enthusiasm for our planet continues unabated. As a token of our appreciation, we hope you will enjoy the two thermonuclear missiles we've just sent to converge with your craft. To ensure ongoing quality of service, your death may be monitored for training purposes. Thank you.

 

[marauder2048]

Errm.... a well informed source told me in the 80s that the SA-5 was only a credible threat if the warhead comprised Instant Sunshine. (Fuzing??)

US Nike-Hercules had nuclear warheads too.

Side note there were 2,550 nuclear warheads built just for the Hercules force. (Talos, Bomarc, and Terrier also had the nuclear option.)

SA-2 had a nuclear warhead as well but it was assessed as not constituting a threat above 80,000 ft.

 

[Rickshaw]

The only picture ever taken of Concorde flying at Mach 2 (1,350 mph). Taken by Adrian Meredith from an RAF Tornado fighter jet, which only rendezvoused with Concorde for 4 minutes over the Irish Sea: The Tornado was rapidly running out of fuel, struggling to keep up with Concorde at Mach 2.

[Source]

 

[Hood]

A technical tour de force, commerical non-starter, an unrealistic dream from a time when speed seemed king, but certainly one of the most beautiful aircraft ever to have come out of any design office in Britain or France.

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

Uhm,.. the famous photo of Concorde at Mach 2 cruise taken from a Tornado???

So the Tornado has a service ceiling of 50kft, and Concorde mach2 cruised at 60kft, so how did it get up there for four minutes ? More over the Tornado’s RB199 being a 3 shaft engine, lacked core mass flow so was very “asthmatic” at high altitudes and achieved it max Mach number (2.2) at about 30kft so how did it manage Mach 2 at 60kft for 4 minuted? Even the photographer was never a member of the RAF and the time according to his bio was a freelance photographer, so how did he get a back seat trip to photograph Concorde?

And it would have had to be an F2 because when this is claimed to have been taken ie April 85 the F3 was still being test flown (service released - May85). The GR1’s at that time had been limited to a Mach 1.2 by inhibiting the upper intake ramps. Could a radarless F2 accomplish a ground controlled inception of this type?

I really have some doubts over the validity of the claims associated with this photo.

The interception reports I remember were Lightning, F4, F14,F15 and I’m pretty sure the French did something similar with Mirage 5 and 2000.

 

[TomS]

Meredith was an in house photog for British Airways and remained their preferred photog for air-to-air work even as a freelancer. From what I've gathered, the stated speed may be a bit overstated; likely that they were closer to M1.5 than M2 when the shot was taken.

Edit: I originally wrote British Aerospace but meant British Airways.

 

[Rickshaw]

*SHRUG* Who cares if you have doubts, Zootycoon? It is a cool photo and the story appears to gell with what we see. As BAC built both the Concorde and the Tornado - it could be possible. As the photographer was the preferred BAC photographer, is highly likely to have occurred. Your opinion is valuable but it is merely your opinion. Until we have evidence that definitely shows what is claimed in the photograph's caption is not true, it is just your opinion.

 

[Archibald]

Concorde

Concorde can surely claim to be the world's favourite aircraft. Its sleek lines and glamorous design made it an icon recognised all over the world. Travelling at twice the speed of sound at 60,000ft, to fly Concorde was the dream of many and the regular pastime of the lucky few. The rich and...

books.google.fr

Seems that Concorde had to slow down to Mach 1.5 and the Tornado was much stripped-down

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

Kadija Man
I don’t like fiction, it’s just the way my brain is wired. I’m not doubting the picture was really taken from a Tornado, (or that other aircraft did eventually achieve successful realistic interception)just the claimed conditions here and that this picture validate anything approaching a real world hostile military interception. We both know this was a staged publicity shot with both aircraft deliberately flying in mutually convenient parts of their flight envelope....... as another poster has said the specific claims have been embellished over the years.

I also have doubts about the snap up capabilities of a Red Top given the limitations of it’s early collision course guidance system (no optimised energy trajectories autopilots In those days ), its short. motor burn time(4.5 seconds- ref Somerfields bio) , its low snap up launch kinetic energy or the ability of a Saab Viggen to intercept an SR71 at cruising Mach/altitudes where the SR71 is performing evasive manoeuvres, all based on some simple maths and physics. If you want to dismiss opinions which l’ve based on the laws of physics in favour of opinions you’ve read on your computer, then that’s your call and I have no further interest in convincing you otherwise.

 

[Rickshaw]

I do not doubt. Zootycoon that intercepting a maneuvering supersonic mover was difficult but as this quote shows, a BAC Lightning was able to do it to Concorde in a stern chase:

The Lightning that once overtook Concorde was described as 'the best of the best' by Flt Lt Mike Hale at the roll-out ceremony for XR749 at Teeside Airport on September 28th 1995. Now an instructor with 56 Sqn at Coningsby, Mike flew 80 sorties in XR749 after the aircraft was allocated to 11 Squadron at Binbrook. He has a particular affection for the aircraft: "The Lightning was an exceptional aircraft in every respect, but XR749 was one of the best of the best.

It is probably the best aircraft that I will ever have had the privilege to fly. Because of her tail code BM, she was known as 'Big Mother', although the tail code changed to BO for her last few months on 11 before joining the LTF in January 1985. She was a very hot ship, even for a Lightning. She remained my aircraft for all her time on 11 Sqn despite my being entitled to an F6 as I moved up the squadron pecking order. I invariably asked for her to be allocated to me for the major exercises such as MALLET BLOW, OSEX, and ELDER FOREST despite her being a short range F3 - there were invariably plenty of tankers about!"

His memories include the time in April 1984, during a squadron exchange at Binbrook, when he and XR749 participated in unofficial time-to-height and acceleration trials against F-104 Starfighters from Aalborg. The Lightnings won all races easily, with the exception of the low level supersonic acceleration, which was a dead-heat. This is not surprising when the records show that the year before on one sortie XR749 accelerated to Mach 2.3 (1500 mph) in September 1983.

It was also in 1984, during a major NATO exercise that he intercepted an American U-2 at 66,000 ft, a height which they had previously considered safe from interception. Shortly before this intercept, he flew a zoom climb to 88,000 ft and, later that year, he was able to sustain FL550 while flying subsonic. Life was not entirely without problems, however, as in a three month period his No 2 engine seized in flight and its replacement failed during a take-off when intake panelling on the inside of the aircraft became detached and was sucked into the engine.

In April 1985, British Airways were trialling a Concorde up and down the North Sea. When they offered it as a target to NATO fighters, Mike and his team spent the night before in the hangar polishing XR749 which he borrowed from the LTF for the occasion, and the next day overhauled Concorde at 57,000 ft and travelling at Mach 2.2 by flying a stern conversion intercept. "Everyone had a bash - F-15s, F-16s, F-14s, Mirages, F-104s - but only the Lightning managed to overhaul Concorde from behind".

[Source]

 

[Arjen]

... or the ability of a Saab Viggen to intercept an SR71 at cruising Mach/altitudes where the SR71 is performing evasive manoeuvres ...

I introduced Viggen and MiG-25 intercepting SR-71 into the thread to show that, if a fighter intercepting a Mach 3 high-flyer was not completely impossible using seventies/eighties technology, interception of a Mach 2 high-flyer is within reach. If I remember correctly, the idea of SR-71/A-12 operations in Soviet airspace was abandoned early because Soviet defences were too strong.
As pointed out earlier, Concorde entered service in 1976. Military Concorde would have arrived later, and would have faced more capable defences than those that led to the abandonment of spying missions in Soviet airspace. That would have relegated Military Concorde to stand-off strikes, for which cheaper less costly options were available.

 

[marauder2048]

Hard to know how to weigh peacetime intercepts and peacetime overflight considerations
particularly as Soviet interceptors were shifting towards countering low-altitude penetration.

Enabling the UK deterrent to meet the Moscow Criterion during this period was not
going to be cheap regardless of the options(s) selected; Chevaline was enormously
expensive in terms of time/resources/money and iffy in the face of a Sprintski

But the UK SLBM force sans Chevaline would still have been very useful for air defense
suppression along/near bomber ingress routes.

 

[DrRansom]

I am curious, the mid-course defense used by the US has assumed low-effectiveness -- yet is built with modern electronics. The 70s and 80s Soviet BMD is credited with high effectiveness, enough to demand the cheverline program. But the soviet bmd used much older radars and electronics. I don't get it.

 

[Arjen]

Enabling the UK deterrent to meet the Moscow Criterion during this period was not
going to be cheap regardless of the options(s) selected; Chevaline was enormously
expensive in terms of time/resources/money and iffy in the face of a Sprintski

Fair enough. I've amended my text.

 

[marauder2048]

I am curious, the mid-course defense used by the US has assumed low-effectiveness -- yet is built with modern electronics. The 70s and 80s Soviet BMD is credited with high effectiveness, enough to demand the cheverline program. But the soviet bmd used much older radars and electronics. I don't get it.

Galosh had a big enough nuclear warhead and high enough altitude to potentially destroy an entire Polaris A3 threat cloud.
So potentially a 1:1 exchange which made even a limited inventory of Galosh interceptors a threat to
the one or maybe two UK Polaris subs that would have been available at any given time.

 

[Grey Havoc]

A user called Vega ECM made the following interesting statement at the bottom of a related thread at https://forum.keypublishing.com/sho...e-for-the-RAF-(Zombie-Thread-from-2006)/page2:

"A good few years ago I was in the Concorde archive legitimately looking for something but couldn't resist from typing 'Military Concorde' into the search. Only two documents came up;- the first dated 1970, was a study on how much of military value could be learnt by the Chinese if they bought a few, but the second dated 1974, was a proposal to the RAF for military versions. This report was about 40 pages and detailed 3 potential versions;- The first was a transport version , a drawing shows a swing nose and landrovers driving down a long ramp. This proposal was covered by just 2 of the 40 pages and really had very little detail. The next is a supersonic strike aircraft. A drawing shows 3 nuclear strike missiles (looking a bit like AGM-69 SRAM's) within the fuselage launched on angled tubes exiting the fuselage underside. This proposal runs to about 10 pages. There's quite a bit of info on mission profile, tactical equipment fit etc. The third proposal is for a tactical recon version. This occupies the majority of the report. Lots of info on camera / radar / eves dropping kit / decoys / ECM mission profiles etc. I would suggest the number of pages in the report probably represents the relative interest from the customer.

Good stuff, all history now."

In the late 1970s I believe Concorde was seriously looked at again as a RAF VIP transport (in particular as an alert evacuation aircraft for members of the Royal Family in the event of a nuclear exchange). The last Military Concorde project confirmed to date was a proposal to procure Concordes for the RAF as Backfire (and later in addition Blackjack) simulators. First proposed in the early 1980s. There have been reports of a EW/ELINT proposal from around the mid-1980s though.

That is interesting! Were they to have been given “aggressor” - type paint schemes and be operated by the RAF?

Yes on the latter. Don't know for certain on the former though it seems likely.