Undercover Vulcan

XM569 undergoing her tidy up.
She did do an undercover operation, or rather exercise, at least once. As related to me by someone who was a member of the crew at the time.
(AEO is Air Electronics Officer who looked after the electrical, electronic and weapons systems).

"On 25 July 1978 in Vulcan XM569, we were tasked to fly down to Brize from Waddington. It had been cleared by the appropriate authority that we were to fly down silent & Low Level. We were simulating a defecting Russian Aircraft. The Ground crew had put suitable large day-glo red stars on the fin and we all had Russian name badges which translated into expletives but looked very Russian! The idea was to land and find a quiet place to 'park' and await the troops to take action! Their OC Ops was a Russian speaker as was our AEO.
Great fun we thought - licenced hooliganism! So down we flew, low & quiet; lurked just out side the Airfield boundary until the runway was clear. Landed, taxied off, shut down, got out with Russian hats on and waited for the arrivel of Brize Norton defence team .... waited .... waited and waited. It would seem that we were too low & stealthy - no one seemed to have noticed us arriving, despite being in full view of the tower, Ops etc.
Eventually, we had to get back in the Aircraft and make an R/T call to announce our presence!"