Looking Glass Aircraft in RAF Service Query

[Cobra]

Hey Guys, i was doing some Research on google. Can Anyone tell me if the RAF like the 'Looking Glass' Aircraft in Service? it's a Question i've kept in my Head for TBL and thought i'd post it. Thanks for looking. Dan

[pyro-manic]

If you're talking about the E-6 Mercury, the RAF don't operate them. The E-6 is only used by the USN.

[Cobra]

the USAF had an Airborne Command aircraft called 'Looking Glass', i was wondering if RAF had something Similar, looking glass was listed as an EC-135! does that help? Dan

[PR19_Kit]

If the RAF ever had anything similar I've never heard of it.

The obvious canddiate would have been one of the three Nimrod R2s, but as we don't have ANY Nimrods left anymore that's a non-starter now.

[rickshaw]

LOOKING GLASS was the codeword for the USAF's Strategic Airborne Command Aircraft.   The RAF never operated one because the UK's strategic retaliation was essentially a one shot weapon.  All that was required was the "GO!" command and everything went.  The USAF's nuclear war fighting doctrine was predicated on not only massive retaliation but fighting a prolonged nuclear war, so therefore an airborne command aircraft made sense, in case other ground based Strategic Command centres were destroyed in the initial exchanges.  The fUSSR used a similar idea as well, with a converted Tu154 IIRC.    I could talk about the differing C^3I arrangements of the Cold War but I suspect it would bore a lot of people.  

If you want a What-If LOOKING GLASS for the RAF, I'd suggest a VC-10.

[McColm]

No, the RAF don't operate the 'Looking Glass' aircraft. I'm using a Heller/AML 1/72 EC-135 'Looking Glass' parts on my BAe Nimrod AEW/5 point tanker, stretch build.
The maritime Nimrods were used as flying command centers for search & rescue operations such as the Piper Alpha oil platform fire or shadowing Richard Branson on his Atlantic Crossing in a power boat.

The Sentinel is the nearest or the 'sneaky-beaky' Beechcraft aircraft with hundreds of aerials poking out of it, flown from RAF Waddington. The Nimrod R1s were more signal intelligence gathers.

[Sentinel Chicken]

I could talk about the differing C^3I arrangements of the Cold War but I suspect it would bore a lot of people. 

Not I.....two years ago I was visiting my parents and they had some friends over and one of them was a former SAC communications specialist. We got to talking about PACCS and he was surprised at the details I was aware of, even about the ERCS launched atop Blue Scout rockets from Nebraska.

[McColm]

The RAF don't use aircraft to talk to the Royal Navy's submarines. We use something else, which I can't tell you due to the offical secretes act that I signed back in 1986 whilst working down at Northwood command centre.

[RLBH]

LOOKING GLASS was the codeword for the USAF's Strategic Airborne Command Aircraft.   The RAF never operated one because the UK's strategic retaliation was essentially a one shot weapon.  All that was required was the "GO!" command and everything went.

Well, thre was provision for the tanker force to serve as airborne communications relay posts, but AFAIK that did rely on someone surviving on the ground to transmit something that they could then relay....

The RAF don't use aircraft to talk to the Royal Navy's submarines. We use something else, which I can't tell you due to the offical secretes act that I signed back in 1986 whilst working down at Northwood command centre.

Highly trained dolphin messengers?

[pyro-manic]

Highly trained dolphin messengers?

Pretty sure that was actually the Americans.

A VC-10 would make sense, with lots of E-4 style aerials and domes.

[Rheged]

The RAF don't use aircraft to talk to the Royal Navy's submarines. We use something else, which I can't tell you due to the offical secretes act that I signed back in 1986 whilst working down at Northwood command centre.

It's either two tin cans and a huge length of waterproof string,  semaphore , an Aldis lamp. Anthorn ULF radio or something involving a blue-green laser. I think my money's on the semaphore  as it's unjammable, cheap and no one else except for the dark blues and boy scouts can read  it any more.

[rickshaw]

The RAF don't use aircraft to talk to the Royal Navy's submarines. We use something else, which I can't tell you due to the offical secretes act that I signed back in 1986 whilst working down at Northwood command centre.

It's either two tin cans and a huge length of waterproof string,  semaphore , an Aldis lamp. Anthorn ULF radio or something involving a blue-green laser. I think my money's on the semaphore  as it's unjammable, cheap and no one else except for the dark blues and boy scouts can read  it any more.

Ah, Comrade, you have forgotten the People's KGB Fifteenth Directorate, dedicated to signals intelligence!  It has maintained a section of Semaphorists!  Trained from a secretly stolen Boy Scouts' Manual, they have learned the secret art of Semaphore.  We have yet though, to understand why this secret Capitalist communications method appears to need them to wear a large flat hat and short pants as shown in the illustrations!   Perhaps it is some secret identification for verification between Semaphorists?  It does though, mean we lose more of them in the Russian Winter than we should!  Such a great sacrifice they have made to the Glorious Revolution! 

[Cobra]

Thanks Guys! Glad to get the Input and to Rickshaw:Thanks for a Good Laugh,Buddy Dan

[Rheged]

The RAF don't use aircraft to talk to the Royal Navy's submarines. We use something else, which I can't tell you due to the offical secretes act that I signed back in 1986 whilst working down at Northwood command centre.

It's either two tin cans and a huge length of waterproof string,  semaphore , an Aldis lamp. Anthorn ULF radio or something involving a blue-green laser. I think my money's on the semaphore  as it's unjammable, cheap and no one else except for the dark blues and boy scouts can read  it any more.

Ah, Comrade, you have forgotten the People's KGB Fifteenth Directorate, dedicated to signals intelligence!  It has maintained a section of Semaphorists!  Trained from a secretly stolen Boy Scouts' Manual, they have learned the secret art of Semaphore.  We have yet though, to understand why this secret Capitalist communications method appears to need them to wear a large flat hat and short pants as shown in the illustrations!   Perhaps it is some secret identification for verification between Semaphorists?  It does though, mean we lose more of them in the Russian Winter than we should!  Such a great sacrifice they have made to the Glorious Revolution! 

Tovarish Rickshaw, I have portentous  and worrying news for you!   The 15th directorate was penetrated by the 1st Bletchley Park Wolf Cub pack  many years ago, and they have been feeding false data into the Revolutionary Intelligence Cadres since the Great Chicksands Jamboree of 1954.   When the counter revolution comes, all major roads will be blocked by squads of Boy Scouts helping old ladies across them and huge quantities of high quality proletarian string will be rendered useless by  complex knot-work.   Furthermore, it is rumoured that ferocious attack squads of Brownies are under training........

Za Rodina!   Romanov!

[rickshaw]

The RAF don't use aircraft to talk to the Royal Navy's submarines. We use something else, which I can't tell you due to the offical secretes act that I signed back in 1986 whilst working down at Northwood command centre.

It's either two tin cans and a huge length of waterproof string,  semaphore , an Aldis lamp. Anthorn ULF radio or something involving a blue-green laser. I think my money's on the semaphore  as it's unjammable, cheap and no one else except for the dark blues and boy scouts can read  it any more.

Ah, Comrade, you have forgotten the People's KGB Fifteenth Directorate, dedicated to signals intelligence!  It has maintained a section of Semaphorists!  Trained from a secretly stolen Boy Scouts' Manual, they have learned the secret art of Semaphore.  We have yet though, to understand why this secret Capitalist communications method appears to need them to wear a large flat hat and short pants as shown in the illustrations!   Perhaps it is some secret identification for verification between Semaphorists?  It does though, mean we lose more of them in the Russian Winter than we should!  Such a great sacrifice they have made to the Glorious Revolution! 

Tovarish Rickshaw, I have portentous  and worrying news for you!   The 15th directorate was penetrated by the 1st Bletchley Park Wolf Cub pack  many years ago, and they have been feeding false data into the Revolutionary Intelligence Cadres since the Great Chicksands Jamboree of 1954.   When the counter revolution comes, all major roads will be blocked by squads of Boy Scouts helping old ladies across them and huge quantities of high quality proletarian string will be rendered useless by  complex knot-work.   Furthermore, it is rumoured that ferocious attack squads of Brownies are under training........

Za Rodina!   Romanov!

Bah!  Little does the 1st Bletchley Park Wolf Cub pack know but their Akela was in fact born in Nizhny Novgorod and is a Colonel in the peoples' KGB!  This plan you have outlined was devised to prevent the Capitalists from being able to reinforce their reactionary forces in Germany when the freedom loving armies of the Warsaw Pact liberated the oppressed West Europeans while defending against a massive armoured thrust by the fascist NATO forces, deep into the Democratic Republic of Germany!   Let us all now join arms and advance, singing the Internationale!   For the Glory of the Motherland!  Onward to dismantle the oppression of the proletarian peoples of the world!   

(see, my University education wasn't for nothing.  I can speak fluent Cold War Rhetoric!    )