Buccaneer flying through the mountain valleys just a few feet from valley floor and mountain sides
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- Опубліковано 7 бер 2014
- Buccaneer with Mike and I in cockpit flying at 450kts just a few feet and only split seconds away from disaster. Amazing skill by Mike, unbelievable scenery and the most amazing experience!!!
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The Bucc didn't have a radar altimeter initially, an American pilot asked how they could fly so low without one....RAF pilot replied 'At 100 feet, cows have legs, at 50 feet Sheep have legs, that's how we know what height we're holding at' :)
This has me rolling around :) that is brilliant.
Excellent comment, I'd heard that before but I couldn't remember the two altitudes!
Haha that's just excellent 😂😂👍
Does anybody know what the lowest altitude is in this video?
@@MostlyPennyCat...Rabbits have legs ? 🤔
Buccaneers. Built for pilots who have a fear of heights.
- or for pole-vaulters on speed.
That was tight wasn't it wow 😮
The Buccaneer - reaches operational height once the undercarriage leaves the runway.
Yes. Once the wheels are up they can then descend to battle ops altitude. Tricky if they encountered a camel in 1991 - go around, or under?
@@iainstevenson6658 Love these stories! Like the EE Lightning: the wings were only there to keep the nav. lights apart.
nope after the undercarriage is raised the bucc could descend to truly low kevel!😅
@@iainstevenson6658 Hits it. Navigator: ‘What the bleep was that?!’ Pilot: ‘Speed bump’.
Unique piece of British aviation engineering. Nothing else like the Buccaneer.
Imagine a USN Navy and Nato Buccaneer
15 years maintaining these beasts. Balls of steel to fly them.
Isn't that high altitude work for a Buccaneer? He was over 50 ft most of the time!
I never met a Bucc pilot who owned a set of stepladders - climbing to the top step was too much for them.
Buccaneers don't have pilot's they have drivers who suffer from altitude sickness.
Does anybody know what the lowest altitude in this video was? I can't tell.
Now you made this USAF WSO homesick for my old RAF 'office'. Thanks for posting this
Sir, I take it you had some great times with the Buccaneer boys, in the cockpit & the mess afterwards ?
@@russcattell955i I did indeed; the RAF is a superb and highly capable Air Force.
Buccaneers..... Made in Yorkshire ! Possibly the best post WW2 military aircraft Great Britain ever produced.
Big fan of em my self, I'd have to agree with u
Broughs finest ! ❤️
Certainly very versatile.
Great aircraft, but I think my vote goes to EE lightning
My vote goes to Hawker Hunter here.
Whatever. I love them all.
Buccaneer showing ultimate under-the-radar technique by flying underground!
Many years ago I was walking in Snowdonia and remember whilst being not that high up on the side of a hill seeing a buccaneer flying along the valley bottom below me. Incredible sight.
Used todo pony trekking in Walses. You'd hearan aircarfact and people would look up. The look on thier faces when the aircraft went under you was worth a Guineia a minute.
My uncle Joe was an Afrikaner pilot at 24 Sqn. Pretoria.
He wasn't joking when he said they would return to base with tree-sap under the wings and twigs in the joints/fuselage.
Unreal.
Callsign:"Pirate"
A few interviews exist on UA-cam about Buccaneer pilots taking part in Red Flag exercises - who claim flying 20ft (yes feet) was high for them. Often going down to 5ft. In debriefing - no other aircraft, AA systems/Radar detected any Buccaneer at low level. A few US aircraft started to chase Buccaneers at higher levels, but they dropped to such low levels that missile systems could not get a tone on them.
A very stable weapon platform and one of the few that (after engine upgrades) exceeded design criteria.
Yep, saw an interview on this where pilot said when low flying over the desert they had to climb to 20' because of the tell tale dust trails at 10'. Brilliant.
@@bigglesace1626 ua-cam.com/video/24CaLD8l0OE/v-deo.html
You can find some of those interviews on this UA-cam page. Super interesting! ua-cam.com/users/Aircrewinterview
The ground crews picking brush scrub from various parts of the kite....outstanding stick and rudder stuff....!!
They used to use the RN ships for target practise. Working on the Flight Deck, we were used as lookouts cos the radar would loose them in the sea clutter. On a clear day, if you were lucky, you could catch them on the horizon because they had a smoky exhaust. When the black line stopped and the dot started to get larger, there was only a few seconds until they hurtled pass below the level of the flight deck, 15 ft above sea level. Glad they were on our side.
Man that's unbelievable. I believe this kind of ultra low level flying was what that Buccaneer was designed for.
Initially the RAF ordered Buccaneer after F-111K was cancelled was 1968, however later they got the RN Buccaneers as well, as you say.
That's quite high for a Buccaneer.....
There's a story of the crew of a Buccaneer walking away from the aircraft at RNAS Lossiemouth where the navigator/backseat crewmen was fine but the pilot was white as a sheet, turns out the plane was so low a wave broke over the nose which should have been the end of it. The navigator had his head down checking instruments whereas the pilot saw it all and rightly thought this is it, thankfully the amazing ruggedness of the Buccaneer saved them.
The Buccaneer had a strong front canopy, in case of a bird-strike.
Behind the pilot was another shield for the Navigator, inside the main canopy.
This was so that a Canada Goose or Swan didn't kill both of them, and the rear Nav. would have a good chance of getting the plane back, or even continuing the sortie.
Most Buccs also had sticks and throttles in both cockpits.
And one of the Dambusters hit the sea. The bomb was ripped out of the bomb-bay and then caused some minor damage aft. The aircraft survived. A bit surprised that that event didn't feature in the film.
@@well-blazeredman6187 No one would believe it.
Buccs didn't have duel controls mate@@stevetheduck1425
Not true! There were no 2 stick Buccs. @@stevetheduck1425
Used to watch these flying out of Durban SA on exercises back in the 80s. They would fly so low over the sea, you'd be thinking I hope he's got wipers on his canopy.
The Buccaneer did have a wiper on the front screen panel - and a screen wash to help clear the salt spray encountered at low level over the sea. Sometimes, a bit of judicious nudging of the rudder pedals was required to spread the wash across the full width of the screen - which (at high very speeds) was not conducive to good airframe fatigue conservation.
Climbing in Llanberis pass and looking down on a tiny Buccaneer (it was so low) contouring the valley bottom at high speed was probably the most spectacular piece of flying I have ever seen, and this done at high speed as well. An incredible aircraft originally designed as a carrier borne strike aircraft for the Royal Navy but with the notoriously stupid decision to scrap the fleet carriers in the 70's they were transferred to the RAF.
RAF didn't want them! They decided to go down the TSR2 route. And don't start that one, our blod pressure won't like it.
They used to come down through the valley in scotland where i lived.....official statement was we don't fly below 500 feet....those are some very small feet
@@diceman199 They meant Centipede feet. That's about 9 inches in old money. ;o)
This is not fly-by-wire. This is hands, and feet on flying.
pucker factor flying
The barrel roll at the end was so ..... almost nanchalant.
The skill level needed to make all that look almost effortless is phenomenal.
Lucky, lucky bastards I shall get up ten minutes aerlier tomorrow just to envy you for longer ;-p
FW: That was not a barrel roll. It was an ordinary aileron roll. The heading of the aircraft did not change and return to the original heading.
@@KB4QAA
You're right.
I'm still geting up ten minutes earlier on a regular basis just to envy them for longer.
@@Farweasel we all knew what you meant mate....trust the bloody anorak to piss on your party...
@@rhurbstafalcon4807 Yep.
Just to make it worse he was right.
On the upside, I've since checked it out an know the difference between a barrel roll & and an aelieron roll.
My new anorak arrives next week ;-P
@@Farweasel top banana mate....👍
Skiing in Glenshee in the 1970s, looked down on a Buccaneer chasing another up the glen below! Brilliant.
They have to gain altitude to get the gear down & land!
Beauty!
XD
Brilliant footage. Shaving rocks, trimming the weeds and cutting the grass! The Bucc rules!
RIP Mike, he really lived the dream.
As a young kid on a trip to eyemouth with the social club family day out. i heard a loud jet come through the fog about level with the pier. for a few brief seconds the Buccaneer appeared then back into the fog and away. bloody amazing and i will never forget that moment.
Amazing film . Thanks.Such skilful pilots
My dad worked on these for 30 years at Atlas in Bonaero Park in K hangar. Atlas did mods and servicing for the SAAF on the Buccs, Imps and Mirages.
What an incredible experience in one of my favourite combat aircraft, very nice!!
Love the Buccaneer. I remember the day they flew the gate guardian in to Brough Site (where it was built) when they were being retired. Four ship formation flew from the direction of the Humber Bridge and tore up the runway one by one. The last aircraft peeled off and landed for the final time.
Got to spend some time in the cockpit while it was sat in Ops hangar - it was awesome. It still had some of its Desert Storm livery visible on the panels in front of the intakes.
RAF Desert Storm nose art was awesome! Equal to WW2 US bombers.
Very impressive piloting skill and a fine testament to a much underrated aircraft.
The performance of the Buccaneer was quite close to the Tornado at low level. I remember the OR team where I worked being surprised by just how close it was when they were doing assessment on the (then) quite new Tornado.
Glynn Wright buccaneer was superior in nearly all aspects to tornado, with new avionics (never got updated because mod thought the buccaneer would be out of service much earlier than actually happened) Buccaneer would and still would be able to hold its own. Yes it wasn't supersonic, could fly higher and faster and much further than tornado a full weight.
New engines would have made a huge difference too. I wonder if they could have wedged Tays in there instead of the Speys? RAE (Bedford) looked at replacing the Speys on XX105 with Tays. Quieter, better fuel economy, more thrust. All great things for any military aircraft. Bedford also had a Bucc with 1553 avionics, so they did some work on the update, just never put it through. When I was there in 1984 they were also looking at the first mid-life upgrade for the poor avionics in the Tornado, which nobody liked, even if it was fast and loud and gave the back seat a much better view.
Underrated by who?
Thanks
I remember seeing a bucaneer at RAF WADDINGTON AIR SHOW and was impressed with this ladies stunning looks and performance to match.Correct me if I'm wrong the RAF sent some buccaneers to take part in the American RED FLAG exercises and their pilots could believe how low the British pilot's flew these aircraft...it was the first time they had ever seen anything quite like it!!!! it's also worth pointing out the bucaneer could also carry nuclear weapons if required....an incredible all round aircraft!!! ....only us Brits could be so diverse and innovative,!!!! to make such an all round capable of virtually anything!!!!!..."RULE BRITANNIA".....
Not only could they carry nuclear weapons but they were also able to function as air to air refueling tankers.
Cracking footage. Great pilot.
Unsurpassed low level stability. Legend has it that Buccaneers weren't fabricated; they were carved from a solid block of metal.
The wing spars were.
Respect to the pilot!
We had them here in the South African Air Force. The pilots loved them.
My suspicion is that this is where this was filmed in one of Thunder City's Buccaneers out of Cape Town.
@@peterlovett5841 Could very well be. Sadly Thunder City is no more
Mike Beechy Head passed away some years ago. And they lost their license before that when their Lightning crashed killing the pilot. Not sure where the aircraft are now.
Definitely looks like the mountains towards Ceres and Tulbach and then over the Swartland back to Cpt... spent a lot of time low level around there in the SAAF.
why would people Dislike this Video ? Its a Great Video...
Probably Russians...
What a lovely old jet the Buccaneer is. So incredibly well built and occupying a unique place in aviation history. I used to love seeing them at airshows as a youngster. Occasionally, while out sailing in the Solent with my dad, we would be treated to a low (ish) fly past of a pair. Of course they were never cleared to go very low over that particular bit of wet, but nonetheless, the sight and sound of a pair heading out past us on Ex, was always a thrill. This is a great film, thanks for posting.
Still in the top 3 of my favourite jets. Tornado and nimrod the other two. Wish these were still in Scotland flying.
I like the old scimitar🇦🇺
Buccaneers and the RAF could go lower and faster than anyone else to hit a target. What an ass kicking airplane that is
Love the Buccaneers, flown by skilled pilots, exceptional navigators. Low level bombing on a different level lol
Loved the Banan,the yanks praised the guys flying it in red flag,bucc was never "shot down" as far as I know in red flag...the ynaks loved the bucc,except when trying to catch her.....loved the roll at the end...pilot thought"this ll get him"....lol
I enjoyed that. Great flying in a real jet, not a flying video game.
Well done!
Awesome footage
Amazing piloting reflexes, and also it highlights the trust formed between the crew.
Where I grew up was 40 miles from Lossie and on the southern edge of a 2000ft zone and habitually used by Buccs to make their way to the low flying area in the NW. Regular free air display including inversions over the hill top on the West side of the glen. Magic.
"I'm goin' in!"
"Use the force Luke!"
Excellent footage!
Love the buccaneer had a ride in one at Honington many years ago scared the s*** out of me but was the best thrill ride I ever had!
Absolutely beautiful.
I once met a Bucc nav at Headley Court who suffered spinal compression injuries when his Bucc skipped the surface of the sea while FIGing.
Fantastic aircraft!
I've always had a great deal of respect for the other services, particularly the army air corp as I was a tankie and did my basic training with them and they used to often land in the wood we were bivid up in and ask for a cabbie in one of our tanks and in return give us a what they considered a scary ride in one of their helicopters but the RAF are the bollocks at what they do.
I did a LOT of flying with ex RAF pilots, all were very impressive! Very varied, AWACS drivers, mud movers, AD pukes, chopper chaps, Nimrods, C130s, Hawks, all very professional and great to work with. They made my life as a Jumbo skipper so much easier.
Liar!
Would love to do this, great video!
Excellent piloting .
That scariest part of this, is realising that the plane is 60 years old. (The airframe itself may be younger, but the design was from the late 50's)
Loved the roll
Possibly thee best low level attack aircraft ever made, great post John
I think that title may go to the A-6 Intruder though
@@IronPhysik nope the A6 wasn’t a better platform than the buccaneer at low level it was a better weapons platform he’s but performance at low level the bucc was by far the more stable platform
@@andypandy5613 do you have a Source on that?
@@IronPhysiknope
I used to work on these - 208 SQN RAF Lossiemouth. 1985.
Proper aircraft! 👍
They used to come down the Valley where i lived just up the road from Lossie also in 1985
I remember the Americans commenting on the Buccaneer at Red Flag, “Jeez those guys eat dirt all day long”
Me too!
I remember seeing some amazing Red Flag videos on the TV news (probably when the MoD was after a funding boost) but have never found them since - any ideas...?
"Go outside if you want to see something"...
@@JonInLondon I remember that too......bloody brilliant piece of film! Never been able to find it again and back when it was taken, probably in the ‘70s, very few people were able to record at home.
@@septiccalling8341 If it was the footage filmed by the US AA gunners, (I believe it was infrared... and at night) the bit where all they caught was a close-up of the underside of a buccaneer, just gaining enough height to clear them......and it made the camera shake... then I saw that too! Bloody Brilliant!
Great ride
That was a great ride tks :)
I was fellwalking in the Lake District in Cumbria in the mid 80's and one of these went over my head as I summited Bowfell and did a barrel roll - I thought - "show off". Brilliant plane - also saw a A10 below me when on Striding Edge on Helvellyn and been buzzed in the early 80's by a F4 Phantom. Bloody Loud!
yeah, same with me, but it was a Vulcan flying below me in the valley. I thought it would fall out of the sky ot looked to be flying so slow. Incredible thing
While visiting the Westbury White Horse years ago, I was surprised to be standing on the hillside looking down on a C130 Hercules flying through the valley.
@@GSD-hd1yhI lived only a few miles from Westbury during the eighties while in my early teens. The area was an aircraft spotters dream. As you say, lots of Hercules, usually three in a row, Buccaneers, Tornadoes, Jaguars, Phantoms, Harriers, Seakings, Hawks, Shackleton’s, A10s, the odd F15 and Nimrod. Can remember taking a walk with my gran when a Tornado flew so low over the local church it nearly gave her a heart attack! We were right in the middle. RAF Lyneham to the North, MoD Boscombe Down to the East, RNAS Yeovilton to the South, and RAF St Athens to the West. Seemed like it was the playground for all military aircraft. Great times.
@Dan Didnot Unfortunately no. It all happened so quickly!
@@GSD-hd1yh I went to university in Lampeter, and it wasn't uncommon to see 130s flying below the level of the main building's central 'tower' (I call it that, but it's just the tallest bit of the building!)
Bloody scary.. great aircraft, great pilot
I remember being on the harbour breakwater at Portknockie (a few miles E of Lossiemouth) in the mid 80's and seeing two pair go by, and I was looking DOWN on them. Unreal.
Beautiful IFR - I Follow River[bed]s!
Love the Buccaneer - what an airplane.
iflyc130 I think you might mean VFR ;)
jagara1 Nah...Just a comical play on IFR (I Follow Rivers/Roads)
iflyc130 Nice one - I haven't heard that one before, another term for pilotage.
@@Slarti True, IFR - I follow roads :)
And how do you navigate?
Oh, IFR
I Follow Railways :)
One of the rare occasions that we ever delivered a project that was well designed and built, came in under-budget, and was delivered before the project's deadline. Come to think of it, it was probably the last thing that we ever built that fits that description!
The Royal Navy Buccaneers where land based at the R.N.A.S. LOSSIEMOUTH, and used to fly NAVEX's in and around The Cairngorms which are a mountain range in the eastern Highlands of Scotland.Low level as fast as you like using DOPPLER, and flying below enemy eyes to deliver a nuclear device.The Aircrew delivered the device using a 'lobbing technique' which gave them time to be elsewhere when the device exploded.
I lived in Dallas, about 12 miles from then RAF Lossie and they used to come down the valley at an altitude of approximatly sod all
Our fleet would definitely have experienced serious problems with Buccaneers in case of war...
Favorite Jet to work on, 15 & 16 sqn Laarbruch early 80's
brilliant plane the bucky, the american intruder did same type of attack but wasnt as quick as the buccaneer on the deck ,low baby,.
Love it, the original low level badasses.
that was amazing footage & amazing low level flying,best of British aviation
The old Bucc was designed with its ‘weird shaped’ fuselage to counter the effects of low level buffet.......how do I know? Im an ex RAF aircraft engineer and we studied this aircraft as part of our training. It even had something called ‘Boundary Layer Control’. A system to duct high pressure engine air over the wings for carrier landings to fool the aircraft it was flying faster! ONLY THE BRITISH could think of that👍🏻🤟🏻🇬🇧 AWESOME aircraft. I dont believe any other manufacturers have continued that system🤷🏼♂️ SUPERB aircraft. Back in the 60’s the RAG had TOP British aircraft ......now......they don’t. The crap F35 ‘Lightning’ is over priced and frequently unserviceable. It makes me LIVID they gave the Lightning name to it😡 The only TRUE LIGHTNING was made in the UK one of the fastest aircraft on the planet in its time! NOW THATS a fighter!👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
Lightning wasn't a fighter. It was an interceptor.
The F-35 has also removed the ability of the UK to defend itself in the event of a war affecting logistical movements. Due to US national security, some electronics units in the plane cannot be opened and repaired in the UK, but have to be returned to the USA. Turkey won the engine repair contract for Europe for the F-35, so there is no third-line repair of engines allowed in the UK - they have to be boxed up and sent to the contractor in Turkey. With Turkey looking more and more like it's trying to rebuild the Ottoman Empire, possibly not the best choice of venue for the servicing of critical components!
Both the Starfighter and the Phantom also had boundary layer control systems, there may be others, but I know these two aircraft were so equipped.
You are forgetting the US had the lightning fighter name before we did, also most of the avionics on the F35 are British designed and built along with the lift fan system on the F35B is built by Rolls Royce. The UK is one of the leaders in the designing of avionics and building systems.
@@andrewtadd4373 Doesn't alter the fact that, unlike Tornado, the aircraft cannot be fully supported/serviced/maintained within the UK alone; some avionics/electronics MUST be sent to the USA for third/fourth-line service/repair; engines MUST be sent to Turkey for the same reason.
Looks uncomfortable - Reminds me of taking my Nissan micra up to 70mph on the motorway
Awesome flight won't forget that in a hurry, Buccaneer pilots flew lower than snakes poo. Yorkshire has offered us so much over the years either traveling in it, on it, through it, or by the people born there that have influenced "the world" as we know it in one way or another even down to the great British cuppa. Excellent cockpit video 👍
That was pure 'stealth!'
fantastic
It's like Skydivers say, "If people look like ants its Ok. If ants look like people, it's too late."
Top marks to the Buck crews
Cracking Aircraft very much unappreciated. I read somewhere it was a smoother flight, faster & more stable at low level than it's peers due to it's blown air system & internal bomb bay. I also read that they tested some of the Tornado's avionics in a Bucc & the test pilot said "just stop here".
The airframe developed cracks & that put paid to the mighty Bucc - still flying at the first Gulf war says it all.
Yep. A Buccaneer was fitted with Tornado avionics and it wiped the floor with the Tornado. A MUCH better maritime strike aeroplane.
The MRCA, (Tornado), program cost more than the Trident nuclear deterrent porgram.
The boundary layer control system was for the low speed flight regimen surely?
@@UncleBoratagain Yes for carrier landings I think but it allowed a shorter wingspan which you want at low level. Can't remember where I read that - Jet magazine maybe?
Any aerodynamicists out there know for sure -would the boundary layer smooth the outer airflow over the wings smoothing low level turbulance?
@@shredjoe1 A higher wing loading (shorter wingspan, smaller wing area) would make the aircraft less susceptible to air turbulence. The blown-air system would be ineffective at cruising and attack speeds, and would have been installed to enable the use of smaller wings while still being able to take off and land at reasonable speeds and roll distances.
@@Kromaatikse Ah cool, cheers. I've clearly misread the article then!
John ,where did this flight take place, how did you come to get a gash flight . Thanks.
Bucs need to gain altitude to put the landing gear down.
They were a welcome sight in the gulf, you never heard them coming, they came from nowhere, over the crest of an outcrop, dropped below our position, kicking shit and sand up and disappearing over the next crest with that thunderous whine, thinking "thank Christ their on our side" much respect to the pilot's
The best... Nothing "simply" about it... ;)
You Lucky DUCK!
Was this one of the Thunder City aircraft?
Just another day at the office.....brilliant aircraft
I have stood on the bridge wing of an RN Leander Class frigate, height of eye about 40 feet and looked down in to the cockpit of a Bucc doing a flyby. I have also seen them have to climb to clear the fo'c'sle of said frigate whilst doing an attack run. Usually the first sight you would get of a Bucc on an attack run would be from the tail exhaust smoke.
I was on the rear flooding deck of HMS intrepid 1990, as they flew over us, woing a bombing target in the Irish sea as they came in from Lossiemouth. The seaman officers called the flying offices WAFU's.. or, Wet And Fucking Useless. Then they took the piss out of them because they all missed the target (but I was pretty impressed, it was a small target).
Spine tingling.......
Even the Bucc, although hewn from solid titanium blocks, suffered structural fatigue, not surprising though!!
Still better than the Typhoon though, which was showing structural fatigue before 2000 flight hours.....Maybe thats Putins plan, wear out the Typhoons with QRA's then come in heavy 🤔
The wings were made out of milled steel blocks. Not titanium.
I remember a Buccaneer coming in to land at NAS Cecil Field, Florida (we had detached from the Ark Royal for 6 weeks while the ship was working through a few maintenance issues in Mayport ), with a hole punched in the leading edge of its’ wing by a turkey buzzard (vulture) - low flying over the Everglades had its’ risks! Had that bird strike been on 1 of our Phantoms, a lot more damage would have been done.
I'm wondering if the UK put enough effort into upgrading the Bucc's nav/attack system. Any thoughts?
A fine line between aviation and pot-holing.
Awesome
Is it that the aircraft was so amazingly good at low level or the pilots were?
Or was it a combination of the two?
And remember, kids, parts of the Buccaneer are made from cast iron. Seriously.
I’m guessing the Buc was pretty nicely overbuilt….great at handling the constant airframe fatigue you get flying low level as seen here
Where and whene was this filmed? Looks like a stunning thing to remember.
South Africa.
Proper old skool flying not computer aided but just pure airmanship
The Bucc, a true Man's plane.
A CT Thunder City Job ?
The Lightning, the Harrier and the Buccaneer. My three favourite aircraft to watch. All sadly no more!!☹️☹️
Ditto, exactly the same three as me😂😂
Check this site out.
lightning422.com/
You left out the Vulcan.