One of the regular charters in the 1970s / 80s was by the Royal Air Force, hiring Concorde to perform supersonic runs off the east coast of Britain for radar ca

One of the regular charters in the 1970s / 80s was by the Royal Air Force, hiring Concorde to perform supersonic runs off the east coast of Britain for radar calibration and interception trials. My uncle was involved from the radar side and recounts how amusing it was to watch the Lightning fighters try to scramble to perform a mock interception; they could peak at Mach > 2.2 but that wasn't anywhere near sufficient. They could only manage it if held airborne with a tanker ahead of the flight path and given lots of warning. Later the Lightnings were 'replaced' by the Tornado F3, which was so anemic in performance that they didn't even try for a firing solution. They used to have to engage partial reheat to keep-up with the turboprop Soviet 'Bears'!