The pilots spoke at the Gioia del Colle air base in Italy just hours after they returned from a mission over Yugoslavia where one pilot was spotted by an enemy radar and took evasive action.

They told of the adrenalin rush they felt while in the air, as well as the fear experienced afterwards.

One pilot, a Scotsman in his 30s, said: "When you see it, it is not fear. There is no obvious feeling of fear.

"In peacetime if you get it wrong you get a hard time from the rest of the formation. The difference here is that if you get it wrong you die.

"You see something happening, you take appropriate action. It is only when you are back in your bedroom that you think about it and then there is fear."

The pilot, who was flying alongside the Harrier targeted by the Yugoslav radar, said that when his colleague had returned to base he had been worried that he had acted correctly.

'Textbook reaction'

He said: "He was concerned, he did the right thing. He did absolutely the right thing. It was a textbook reaction and he can take comfort from that."

Another pilot said the others had supported the airman when he got back, and they had talked about what had happened "very openly over a beer".

The airmen are risking death

He said: "We support each other and we talk about our feelings in the debrief. We are a very close community."

The second pilot said that when the American Stealth Bomber plane was brought down on Saturday, the mood was "very down and up".

He said: "It concentrates the mind. It focuses attention. His being rescued was very encouraging indeed."

Explaining how real missions differed from training exercises, he said: "You are thinking hard, but you know where you are - over enemy territory."

Pilots feel fear after sorties

A third pilot, in his 20s, was asked if the airmen regarded their mission so far as a success.

He said: "For us as pilots it is a success that we all come back. Our prime aim is to survive."

When he was fired on, adrenalin rushed through his system and his thought processes quickened, he said.

The Scottish pilot added: "When we look back we will remember every single minute of the sorties we have done.

"What felt like an hour is compressed into a minute - the adrenalin is definitely flowing."