Top Tonka!

[eng]

Ever been glad you were still at work when you should be in the house? I was this evening! Our office in the hangar overlooks Glasgows main runway to the North and I was just handing over the evenings work to a colleague when we were rather abruptly interupted by some hellish noise from outside. On glancing out the window there was nothing on the runway, but from behind the control tower appeared a 25 Sqn Tonka going hell-for-leather in FULL reheat at no more than 40-50ft off the deck right to the very end of the runway before rocketing skywards until it dissapeared into the rather dull,grey sky!! Damn, what a great reason to be late home, and a great end to my week!!

Only the day before I'd been driving to work thinking I'd not had my fill of fast-jet noise for ages and how cool would it be to be passing the runway lights just as a Tonka or Typhoon did an overshoot. I always seen to miss any overshoots and there's never enough anyway.

Looking on the web tonight at - http://www.egpf.vze.com/

I found this wee snippet of info -

RAF aircraft on Runway 09.

ZE969(FH) Tornado 1120/1840 "Savage 2" *1st visit*.

Diverted in due to bird strike on the cockpit canopy. Company Tornado "Savage 5" was

in the overhead untill this aircraft landed safely.Both en route from Leeming to Leuchars.

What I thought was just a really low pass was the aircraft departing. Anyone know any more than this?

Eng

[colin ritchie]

It may be a part of the standard RAF famlirisation routine they operate, what I was told is that all RAF Aircrews based in Scotland must be famliar with the ATC procedures for all major airfields in Scotland , goes back I believe to the old Cold War doctrine that all aircrews must be ready to divert to any operational airfield in the event of a base closure.

We get a lot of flybys inAberdeen, Tornados and Nimrods , and the occasional Typhoon - they basiclly do a fast pass through the controlled zone - great fun to watch .. Even more fun when we had Jaguars up here as well ,