F-14 Intercepts an Avro Vulcan bomber over the USS Nimitz | Mover Clips
Video from the channel C.W. Lemoine about Avro Vulcan, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 4:11. Language: English. Video type: News.
Excerpt from an interview in which a former F-14 pilot recounts how he intercepted an Avro Vulcan near the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. He was on alert five, sitting in the aircraft already on the catapult, when he was launched against an unknown contact about 34 miles away and between 23,000 and 26,000 feet.
After climbing on afterburner to 22,000 feet and Mach 1.2, he saw an aircraft with a cranked-delta wing that reminded him of the Space Shuttle. Pulling alongside it, he identified it as a Vulcan. He contacted it over UHF and offered to fly over the carrier so it could be photographed. The British pilot, who had not realized he was being intercepted, agreed, made several low passes and returned to Lisbon.
The anecdote shows how onboard alert status and the data link between the ship and the fighter worked during a real interception.