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A ferret mission is a covert aerial reconnaissance mission that detects radar frequencies and strength. The name is taken from methods used by ferrets to seek out other animals' habitats.
The first ferret mission occurred on December 1942, in Cambridgeshire, England. It involved a Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft flown by Sergeant Paulton, with Flight Sergeant Harold Jordan serving as the mission's radio frequency operator and Flight Sergeant William Bigoray serving as radio operator. Aside from Jordan, the aircrew were Canadian. Around 5am on 3 December 1942, the aircraft was attacked eleven times; around 7:20am, the aircraft reached the English coast. Jordan had been wounded in the attack, while Bigoray's legs were severely injured. The crew expected that Bigoray would not survive, and so he was parachuted out while the plane flew over Kent, with his technical documents tucked into his clothing in case he died. Bigoray landed safely and later recovered. The crew ditched the aircraft near Walmer at around 8:24am. [1]
The United States' first ferret mission occurred on 6 March 1943, and involved a B-24 Liberator flying over Kiska, Alaska. Just over a month after that mission, the 16th Reconnaissance Squadron (now the 16th Electronic Warfare Squadron of the United States Air Force [USAF]) was formed at Foch Field in Tunisia.
In the 1960s, almost 100 aircrew died, or became unaccounted for, flying ferret missions. [2]
In the 1991 Iraq War, missile technology made it possible to automate much of the work of searching for radar frequencies of enemy air defences. The resulting system, known as Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD), was implemented by US forces with the AGM-88 HARM missile; and by British forces with the ALARM missile carried by the Panavia Tornado.[ citation needed ]
The Samos-F satellite, operated by the US National Reconnaissance Office in the 1960s, was known as a ferret satellite.[ citation needed ]
The USAF operated its early ferret missions out of Forbes Air Force Base in Kansas (now called Topeka Regional Airport). European ferret missions were carried out by the 7499th Support Group in Germany, and out of Yokota Air Base in Japan.
The 4200th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing was formed in January 1965, and its main aircraft, the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, first flew out of Beale Air Force Base in northern California in January 1966. This aircraft could fly at 90,000 ft (27,432 m) and at over 2,000 mph (3,219 km/h).
US ferret missions later moved to the 45th Reconnaissance Squadron of the 55th Wing, out of Offutt Air Force Base (south of Omaha, Nebraska).
In the 1960s and early 1970s, the RAF flew ferret missions with 543 Squadron out of RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire. These missions flew on Handley Page Victor aircraft. RAF Wyton is the home of the RAF's reconnaissance operations. 51 Squadron moved to Wyton in 1963, flying ferret missions over the Barents Sea. This squadron flew the Comet until 1974, when it changed to the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod. The RAF flew ferret missions with the Nimrod until 2011.
RAF Sculthorpe operated ferret missions for the USAF in the 1950s with the 322nd, 323nd, and the 324th reconnaissance squadrons, as well as the 91st Strategic Reconnaissance Wing.
Project HOMERUN ferret missions took off from England in April 1954.
The USAF 95th Reconnaissance Squadron operates regularly out of Suffolk.
The Soviet Union probed air defence radar with their Long-Range Aviation Myasishchev M-4 (Bison) and Tupolev Tu-95 (Bear) aircraft.
The Soviets made unauthorised incursions with Aeroflot aircraft by turning off their transponders. On 9 November 1981, an Aeroflot Ilyushin Il-62 made an unannounced descent from 35,000ft to 11,000 ft and switched off its transponder in order to fly directly over RAF Boulmer; it then climbed to 37,000 ft. The same Aeroflot aircraft had previously flown over a US military base at Groton, Connecticut, to investigate the Trident missile system. [3]
On 8 April 1950, a Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateer commanded by Lt John Fette, flying from West Germany, was intercepted by four Soviet Lavochkin La-11 fighters near Liepāja in Soviet Latvia; ten US aircrew were killed. [4]