English Electric Lightings in formation with Tupolev Tu-95 “Bear” bombers. During the Cold War the USSR sent Tu-95s into NATO airspace or very close to it to test the reactions of NATO states, the U.K. being no exception. The British always responded and sent fighters to turn them back and show that the RAF was ready to fight and would react to any violations of airspace. My father, who served with the RAF from the 1970s until the 1990s mainly on radar, remembers picking up the “Bears” and tracking them, as well as tracking the fighters sent to turn the Soviet bombers back.