Flashback to 1991 - War In The Gulf: RAF Pilots risky low-level missions

[Frankie]

Came across this interesting piece of history from the New York Times.

From: https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/25/world/war-in-the-gulf-raf-british-pilots-risky-mission-low-level-raids-on-airfields.html

"The margin for error is very small,"

"Some of the American planes are a mile up. We are flying at 100 feet in the face of antiaircraft fire in darkness."

"There is no time to recover."

To put things into perspective, from here:
The RAF lost 8 Tornadoes during combat operations in Operation
Granby (the Gulf war).
One had to be abandoned, since after take-off the control system
refused to turn to the left, and if you only can turn to the
right, you can't land.

Six was lost during conventional bombing missions, mostly during
the high phase of loft bombing to keep down air defences.

Only one was lost on a JP 233 mission.


Other references:

http://articles.latimes.com/1991-01-23/news/mn-762_1_air-force
https://archives.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/flatview?cuecard=59881