Fly With RAF's Quick Reaction Alert Crews

the eurofighter typhoon one of the most advanced fighter jets in the world armed and ready the pilots set to scramble at a moment's notice to defend the country on the orders of the British government this is what order I've been given this is my job I earn the weapons platform for the first time cameras have been allowed to film every stage of this vital part of national security the worst case scenario is that we potentially have to shoot down an aircraft we have scrambled we have been inside the UK's top-secret nuclear bunker and heard from the pilots themselves and the politicians who would give them the order to shoot down a plane he were a hostile aircraft that's quite threatening market coming in a matter of seconds the sky defenders of the United Kingdom are away on what has now become a routine down including down up just as we were ready in 1944 the Nazi aircraft coming across the southeast of this is the story of how the RAF protects Britain's skies every minute of every day RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire is home to two frontline typhoon squadrons thirty combat jets are based here they are flown by 40 pilots and supported by 400 ground crew they have many roles but the one that never ends for them is a mission known as QR a it stands for Quick Reaction alert the rafs operation to protect the skies in Britain [Music] on a discrete part of RAF Coningsby is a building nicknamed the cue shed it sits between two hangars inside each one is an aircraft loaded with fuel and missiles ready to takeoff day or night the pilots take it in turns on the QRA rotor each shift last 24 hours they don't want us to broadcast their surnames for their own personal security just tell me what it's like this is the feelings when you're on shift and you're very tense because you don't know when it's gonna crack yeah indeed you can't you can't think about it too much and because otherwise you your mind wouldn't be in the right place when you got the shout and obviously you've always got an ear on Iran anything that they're gonna happen on shift the cue shed becomes home they're our bedroom so they can sleep overnight but on duty their senses never fully switch off mark is coming to the end of his first shift and it's been a quiet one this is your first G RA yeah what sort of feeling of responsibility do you yes it's a huge feeling of responsibility and this it's kind of nice to be able to Connie kind of live fulfil the training that we've carried out for such a long period of time and but yeah that certainly is a weight of responsibility yet why is it important for you to be doing this job I think it's a its Johnson funny it's a real privilege to be in this position to protect the country as a whole it's been a gentle introduction to QRA for mark not every shift though is as quiet as this one on average eight thousand aircraft enter British airspace every single day this animation shows the actual root of each plane during one typical 24-hour period last year whether they're landing taking off or just passing overhead each aircraft must be closely monitored it is quite a challenge but our training and the practising and the simulation that we do in terms of our operations are fundamental to making sure that we achieve the tasks that we are assigned to do we're identifying aircraft every day and we're looking for every aircraft that comes into the UK to understand where it's going what it's doing but but on occasions on a daily basis there are instances where we are unsure of what the aircraft is doing or it might be in a different place to where we were expecting it or a different time the British military has two air control and reporting centers CRC's one faced Atari at Bulmer in Northumberland and this one at arias Campton in Lincolnshire just a few miles to the west with the typhoon stationed at RAF Coningsby for security reasons the various parts of the QRA operation are kept in different locations in case of attack their job here is to identify suspicious activity they are looking for abnormal behavior unusual flight paths loss of communication unidentified aircraft as we are filming and alert goes off everything okay what we've got is had a core on the guardrail of god radios away every aircraft for the playing distance in that radio with air traffic going out for a an aircraft who's not speaking to anyone at the moment every single aircraft you can every aircraft were listening to Gartner dive radio so that actually need to contact their character in this particular instance an aircraft has got everyone out of mind believe it to have a bus stuck at ranked by a receiver which means each are here but we have not had him check in so they've gone on guard radio to try and contact him to establish two-way communications with him and therefore be able to identify him and confirm which aircraft it is it turns out to be a US Air Force plane with radio problems nothing to worry about the typhoon crews are stood down we have two main missions in respect of quick reaction and alert one is against military aircraft and Russian aircraft and the other one is very much a UK centric 911 type scenario this is a Russian bear aircraft it's a long-range tupelov bomber recently Vladimir Putin has been using them to challenge NATO's response how do you assess that current geopolitical situation with the Russians well now if the first question is you know going to speak to mr. Putin and see what his intentions are but I think the important thing from my viewpoint we have a responsibility as a NATO member firstly to reassure those our member states that are much closer to any potential Russian threat than ourselves that we are here that NATO is fit for purpose and of course to deter as part of NATO any potential aggressors to be organized only last Thursday to RAF typhoons were scrambled from Lossiemouth in scotland to intercept a Russian blackjack strategic bomber that is capable of flying supersonic the Russian planes don't submit a flight plan will transmit their position they never actually enter British airspace but fly into the British area of interest to test the re s reactions they're doing their job and we're doing our job to determine what is happening and then feed that back to the fighter controllers and to further up the chain in April 2015 a Russian bear bomber flew up the English Channel straight through busy commercial flight paths this is video of that incident filmed from inside the Russian plane the RAF typhoons shadowing it alongside this kind of flying is it's extremely intimidating it's also dangerous they may not enter our airspace but they don't respond they don't file flight plans they don't respond to air traffic control they don't even respond to our pilots when they're up in the air alongside them it's unnecessary behavior it's Intimidator it's designed to to annoy us but it's important we respond to it and we do in a matter of seconds the sky defenders of the United Kingdom are away on what has now become a routine job shooting down Nazis 75 years ago the men and women of the RAF were performing a very similar role but against a very different enemy in 1940 the German Luftwaffe was bombing airfields across the South East of England the only thing that stood in their way were the hurricanes and Spitfires of Fighter Command and was the Battle of Britain well this is rather large part of British history if it wasn't for the replica hurricane and a Spitfire as well you wouldn't know it's here you can almost walk straight past it because 76 stairs below here is a world war two underground operations room which was the command center for the Battle of Britain during those tense days this bunker at RAF Uxbridge was manned round-the-clock as the Nazis pummeled the airfields in the southeast key decisions they would decide the fate of Europe were taken here 60 feet underground it's extraordinary to think that just 70 years ago this was very much the height of technology and trying to imagine what it must have been like during those days they would have been 20 people crowded around this table all of them women working in pairs plotting the rout of German aircraft as they came across the English Channel one RAF officer said it was like a game of tennis the Germans were always serving the RAF were the ones returning and on that day that crucial day as if to add to the pressure Winston Churchill the prime minister was up here watching down and he saw on the board behind all of the lights turn red mean that every single Spitfire and Huracan squadron was up in the air engaging the Germans and he turned to the man in charge and said how much we got in reserve the answer came back none quite a command was vastly outnumbered the Luftwaffe came at them with over 3,000 aircraft the Allies only had 600 in the beginning Fighter Command lost 103 pilots killed 128 seriously injured the lifeblood of Fighter Command its fighter part it was ebbing away so we were in a pretty serious state we had pilots we didn't combat trained pilots some pilots were living at frontline squadron's if they were lucky with 20 hours experience on a hurricane or Spitfire summer 15 sub with 10 some with none at all the hurricane might have shot down more planes in the battle but the Spitfire has become a British icon well this is the last remaining air worthy Spitfire to have fought in the Battle of Britain and then RAF bought it for 25 pounds of a scrappy back in 1948 would you believe it it's not particularly comfortable I have to say and to imagine that these young men would go up in it four or five times a day to face the Germans over the English Channel is it's quite something today the home of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight is RAF Coningsby the planes that defended Britain's skies 75 years ago now live alongside their modern successors the typhoons there are a few RAF pilots who get to fly both one of those is Coningsby station commander group captain J's at rige these old airplanes you can really feel them you know your there's not much to them it's you in the stick whereas the modern aeroplanes it's all about processing the information rather than actually flying the aeroplane so you're seen there is a battle space manager rather than a cure pilot like the Spitfire and the hurricane the typhoon was designed for a dogfight it was built to shoot down the enemy from their lincolnshire base they can be over central London in just 10 minutes when the alarm goes there is no time for a briefing coming up the siren sounds alright the siren goes off and we need to be out of those aircraft and as soon as possible trains kicks in and the adrenaline flows and we experience firsthand what it is like to be intercepted at 35,000 during the later years of the Cold War when the Russian nuclear threat was at its height the British government built this bunker at RAF Air Command outside High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire it is so top secret that this is the first time cameras have been allowed to film it three sets of blasters protect it from nuclear biological and chemical attack there are four floors going deep below the ground on the second somewhere in the heart of the bunker is the national air defence operations center the NATO has the top of the military chain to protect Britain's skies role of the NAIDOC is to act very much as the hub the fusion point if you want to further all the information that comes in to allow us to exercise air defence on behalf of Defence if a suspicious aircraft appears there is a direct line from here to the Department of Transport and the Metropolitan Police counter-terror unit they can swap intelligence to build a clearer picture of the threat in real emergencies a red phone connects straight to Downing Street when dialed a voice answers with one simple word London it is then transferred to the Prime Minister or to a senior Cabinet minister of he is away imagine when the phone rings even during an exercise the heart beats a little faster yes you know there are there are lives at stake their answer and his you're unsure as to whether hi real the threat is and there's advice available to you but in the end Minister has to take that decision the qra operation is highly sensitive it has never been filmed before from start to finish but the RAF gave us unprecedented access to do just that this is how it works we flew out of RAF Coningsby to play the part of a hijacked passenger plane so we've been heading east over the North Sea about there at the moment and in a minute we're going to turn around and start going back down towards the UK but this time is an unidentified aircraft a winter one alarm bells to start ringing the Typhoon's base here and colleagues we will be scrambled they will come out sit alongside us and intercept Atari of skempton our aircraft is identified on the computer screens they immediately contact the maid of the bunker at RAF Air Command that rep good morning sir this is the master control I have a tract of interest in the system for you Zulu Zulu zero zero one these East Coast heading Northwest line now at 35,000 feet yeah I can see it on your radar Roger that's understood I will be quick reaction alert to readiness standby the master controller that's Campton alerts the typhoons comments the operations and curare this is the black dog master controller acknowledge your 8q on for quick reaction alert [Music] the two pilots and their ground teams run to the hangars [Music] they can flick a switch to begin powering up the jet even as they climb into the cockpit the typhoons are clear to take off we have scrambled to the curator to intercept this lost contact wonderful a superstar climb flight level 4 1 0 & 4 0 0 let's be initially vegetable a nine position datura gate as they break through the clouds a team on the ground are still trying to gather intelligence on the suspect aircraft typhoons need to reach it fast and assess the situation for themselves the quicker they get there the more thinking time for the prime minister if he is called upon to make a decision and it can happen we start with breaking news tonight as a Russian built Latvian cargo planes been intercepted by RAF typhoons and escorted into Stansted Airport the minute in October 2014 the typhoons from RAF Coningsby flew supersonic to intercept a latvian aircraft approaching london it wasn't communicating and said the RAF pilot gave this final warning the cargo plane was safely escorted into Stansted it is one of the UK's designated airports for terrorist incidents people have compared the people communicating the cockpit are fully trained fully rehearsed and ready for that moment back at RAF Coningsby even as the two typhoons are closing in on our target aircraft new Jets are being readied should another call coming the pilot inspects the weapons and as his preflight checks in the cockpit if the sirens sound everything must be ready to go although there is another QRA base at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland Coningsby must be set to launch any time of day or night even if some of its aircraft are already deployed 30,000 feet above the North Sea the typhoons are closing in on our aircraft they approach cautiously in case they spook the plane and then they try to contact a [Music] dozen fully armed he were a hostile aircraft that's quite threatening the typhoon pilots will report what they're seeing back to the ground and in turn receive any new intelligence so that they can stay on station for as long as needed a refueling tanker is deployed they will be getting communications from the controller reporting centers at Skansen and and Fullmer they'll be giving us instructions and as more information is fed to them and they gain more information from from other sources and then gradually there's an escalation process if that needs to occur there's nothing new in there that we don't practice and the training just kicks in and the adrenaline and adrenaline flows having no luck with radio contact the typhoon pilots fire flares as a show of force by now most options have been tried and our plane is still not responding it has become a real threat to national security it is probable that were this happening for real the prime minister or a senior cabinet member would now be on the line and brief the worst-case scenario is that we potentially have to shoot down an aircraft but that's having gone through the most robust processes and procedures in order to identify and interrogate that aircraft and who would make that decision that decision is held at the political level at the highest political level but who would give the order to the pilot the orders would be issued by my team they trained for that absolutely and they're ready to do would you be prepared to shoot down a commercial airliner at the end of the day we're in the military this is our job 24/7 365 days days a year so and if that's an order given to us and the correct protocols have been followed the correct authentication to be given then yes you can't think about it it's our job it's in order it will when I land it won't ever the typhoons have returned two colleagues beat another day on quick reaction alert their mission is over their shift isn't they go back on standby ready should the alarm go again [Applause] [Music] in 1940 the young men and women of Fighter Command protected britain's skies against nazi invasion today seventy-five years on Russian aircraft continue to probe NATO's air defenses the threat of terrorism is as high as it has been for many years everyone knows their part in the system they trained for it the reverse for it and so then if an event happens then the register react training kicks in this is what I've been trained to do this is what order I've been given this is my job every pilot engineer and controller is aware of the part of a play keeping the country safe protecting Britain's skies every minute of every day

Channel: Sky News

Views: 3,490,401

Keywords: RAF Coningsby (Military Post), Sky News, skynews, news, Alistair Bunkall, Quick Reaction Alert, Eurofighter Typhoon, Typhoon, Royal Air Force, RAF, Pilot, War, Military officer, aviation, aeroplane, Top Gun, Russia, Russian military, Vladimir Putin, battle, F-35, USAF, Battle of Britain, RAF 100, Remembrance, Armistice

Id: 3hijzP1zzLI

Length: 23min 19sec (1399 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 14 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/Enzemo]

Holy shit it's running XP, we're all fucking doomed.

Obligatory IT Crowd clip

[u/[deleted]]

Damn nosey russians.

This is really interesting, I was wondering what sort of things they'd say to the pilots. It gave me chills when they said they'd shoot it down. But my god that must be a fun and stressful job.

[u/lollipoppizza]

What if a plane's radio is completely down? How do they contact the pilots? If I had to guess, by visual hand waving basically.

[u/That_-_guy]

This was such an interesting video, thanks for the upload

[u/[deleted]]

Could do without the dramatic music. Just tell it like it is.

[u/Dragonoff]

Windows XP...

[u/FlippantNipples]

But in the end our minister has to take that decision.

[u/MeowMeowFuckingMeow]

Not sure why it's carrying a Paveway @ 18m39s if it's supposed to be on QRA....