How low Buccaneer and Phantom crews trained to fly

The public trial requirement placed Buccaneers and Phantoms below roughly sixty or seventy metres, but the actual altitudes are not stated. A participant recalled the two groups of pilots competing to see how much lower they could fly. The panel jokes that sheep might have needed to jump over the aircraft, conveying how extreme the sea- and terrain-skimming culture became. The watch point illustrates that the Buccaneer's survivability concept depended on remaining beneath much of the enemy's radar picture rather than absorbing attack at altitude.