Royal Air Force F-4 Phantom Pilot Recalls Shadowing two Soviet Tu-95 Bears over France Because French Fighters Were Grounded for Bastille Day Celebrations

Royal Air Force F-4 Phantom Pilot Recalls Shadowing two Soviet Tu-95 Bears over France Because French Fighters Were Grounded for Bastille Day Celebrations

Al Winkles and his navigator scrambled from RAF Leuchars expecting a routine 30-minute intercept. Instead the two Tu-95s turned south, and the Phantom followed them 150 miles past Cornwall with no maps of France, no diversion airfields, no weather, and no radio contact with anyone but a departing tanker. The Mirages that should have taken over never launched. Afterward, Winkles ordered maps of northern France carried on every 43 Squadron QRA jet.