RAF Aerospace Systems Operators Recruiting film for potential recruits to the Royal Air Force 1975

[@johndell3642]

Excellent video, thanks for posting it. From 3.42 minutes the fighter control scenes switch to RAF Buchan near Peterhead . At 3.42mins you can see a Marconi S259 (later called the Type 95) radar aerial in the foreground with the huge Type 80 radar behind. Briefly at 4.33 and then again 5.48 shows the Photographic Display Unit (PDU) plotting table. An image of the radar picture was projected onto the table from below (not seen in this film either for security reasons or because the lights had to be dim to see it). At 5.38mins is the aerial of the General Electric AN/FPS6 "nodding" height-finding radar. At 6.46 is another view of the Type 80 radar, this time with the FPS6 in the foreground.

[@tinkeringforfun]

@@johndell3642 spent 6 of my 12 years as a Scopie at Buchan 1979-1985. This was so nostalgic. I teach English now in Austria and now I can show my students, who are always fascinated by my RAF career, especially being a woman in the military!

[@damian-g4lht]

My old base but the table was defunct by 84. Spent many an hour behind the tote with a chinagraph.

[@ianmcclellan7695]

Me too! I get to Buchan in 87.

[@ianmcclellan7695]

I see what they did now with the other film. They cut this one in half and sandwiched the other material in the middle. 😃 Great to see this and see the old kit in action.

[@Gazzab6]

Wow, that brought back some memories, I wonder what year it was filmed? (Saw the year of 1975 in the title after watching the video). I arrived at Buchan in March 78 so just before my time). As John said below, the PDU had the live radar picture generated from below. It was a great system for its time as it took some workload away from the short range radar operator as they didn’t have to constantly update the person on the plotting table as the radar response could be seen on the table. The radar picture projected onto the PDU within the short range radar area was 15 seconds behind due to the time the radar took to do a full 360° rotation.

[@ianmcclellan7695]

I was at Buchan after you. First tour May 87 to Oct 88. Second tour Oct 94 to Jan 2000.

[@Gazzab6]

@@ianmcclellan7695 no problem. It must have been a different Ian McClellan that I knew.

[@DenisMclean-e9o]

Glad I was never posted there. It was a crap posting. Ps, they never controlled the fighter aircraft from fylingdales. Also, they’ve spliced 2 films together.

[@Hants_Prints]

seems a common theme in recruitment videos, they film a batch and then keep using the footage to bang out videos, there's quite a few that it's not worth posting as they are basically the same with a slightly different commentary

[@ianmcclellan7695]

The film shows examples of the Trade and it’s pretty obvious they’re not running QRA ops from Fylingdales.