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Aerial dogfights east of Gibraltar
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by Brian McCann
‘Very friendly and very fascinating.’ That was the unanimous view of four of the key figures in the on-going RAF Macaque Attack exercise which is scheduled to end this Friday.
The local media had been invited to meet the senior personnel who are actively involved in the exercise and to ask them individually about their experiences. For one of them, a major in the United States Air Force, there was the added unique experience of operating on a runway with a busy road crossing it; and for all of them the unseasonably excellent weather was a common talking point.
Wing Commander Gerry Mayhew, in command of the Tornados which he had brought from his base at RAF Mayham in Norfolk, the home of his XIII Squadron, was pleased to tell me that it was one degree celsius and very foggy back home.
He explained that whilst all we see in Gibraltar appears to be planes, taking off, circling the Rock and landing again, there were in fact serious exercises taking place 30 miles to the east where the pilots were practising air-combat manoeuvres – dogfights – and increasing their confidence in handling the planes. ‘Both of these are useful in Afghanistan and Iraq for avoiding ground-to-air missile attacks on us,’ he explained.
He said that the planes were heavy on fuel, so had to return to Gibraltar after 35 minutes to refill their tanks. Generally there were three waves or sorties of three planes each per day, although this varied.
Gerry told me that around 100 RAF personnel had travelled to Gibraltar for the Tornados alone, including a surprising number of engineers. Although the exercise ends this Friday, some of the personnel would be leaving early because of the threat of gales over the Bay of Biscay.
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