THE AIRCRAFT
The Press made much of the age of the Buccaneers on their deployment, allocating them the soubriquet “The Golden Oldies”: that is very much what they proved to be, albeit we were not the oldest RAF aircraft in theatre.
The Tornado aircrews were initially quite sceptical of our ability to keep up with the Tornado; they were very much mistaken.
Although our navigation accuracy was clearly inferior to the Tornado the Buccaneer’s aerodynamic performance was clearly superior. It out-climbed the Tornado, cruised faster and higher, could refuel at much higher altitudes and required less fuel from the tanker on all missions. Despite always being the last aircraft to leave the target area we invariably arrived home first.
Newer is not always better.
Battle Damage We were very lucky; the Buccaneers took no hits at all. I think it would have fared very well in this regard.
By the time we reached the target area all remaining fuel was in the 8 tanks which were in the upper half of the fuselage. The wings of the Buccaneer carry no fuel inside them, and apart from electrical and hydraulic lines are virtually solid metal.
Most modern twin-engined fighter-bombers mount both engines side-by-side at the very back of the fuselage. If heat seeking missiles destroy one then they are likely to destroy both. On the Buccaneer the engines were/are at the front of very long, separated jet-pipes; it was therefore highly unlikely that a heat-seeker could get both engines. I doubt that battle-damage survival is given much priority in the design of our modern aircraft; I am sure it receives none from politicians or treasury civil servants. Cost is the over-riding issue; It is a very false economy.
THE AIRCREWS
The initial detachment consisted of the most experienced aircrews of 208 and 12 Squadrons and also No 237 OCU. Our initial successes resulted in a doubling of our aircraft numbers by a second 6 aircraft tranche, bringing the unit up to 12 aircraft, 18 aircrews and commensurate extra groundcrews.
