Always great fun working with our leetle froggy friends!
During Bold Gauntlet, from Gutersloh, we were supposed to practise escorting either a C310 or a Fench C-160 up the 'passageway' (don't say 'corridor'....
).
The Brits had an F4 det, the French had some Mirage IIIs - and the spams had F-15As. Of course the spams could have done the whole thing themselves, but this was a political gesture. Nevertheless, the spams spent ages working out tactics, whereas the Brits and the French just bumbled around their assigned sector. Various codewords were assigned for whoever saw the intruding 'MiG' - either a Hunter T7A / T8B from Laarbits or an F-16. When the spams were leading, codewords woulf be things like 'Snake' or 'Bear' or other oo-rah words...
But when it came the turn of an F-4 mate known as Stu T+9 to lead, the words were 'knobber' and 'pillock' etc....
Hilarious listening to Les Froggies announcing "Blue 2 is nobbeurre!"
Then came the day the French had the lead and the C-160 was the transport to be escorted. They took the Brit C-130 captain along for the ride - along with all the prettiest WRAFs on the base (and there were quite a few back then!).
Bimbling about flying figure-of-eight on the left wing, Impiger and I were astonished to see the French Mirages neatly lined up in echelon behind the C160, with the Hunter and F-16 tacked on the end. The C-160 ramp was down and the only person on the flight deck was the Brit C-130 captain who'd never flown a C-160 in his life! The rest of the French team were partying with the girls in the back and taking photos of their Mirage mates!
I think that Words were Had by the F-15 boss as he thought this was all a bit unprofessional. To soothe international relations, he offered a visiting French general a trip in the F-15B. Usual brief, then down to flying clothing....
When handed his turning trousers, the Frenchman announced in a rather superior way "Ah am a fighter peelot - Ah do not need a g-suit!"
The boss went to find the most aggressive pilot on his det and told him "The general says he doesn't need a g-suit; perhaps you would like to change his mind for him?"
So off they went. The spam held it down along the entire length of the runway, then pulled hard into a full A/B spiral climb until he arrived at the max permitted alt, throttled back to idle/idle, popped full speed brake and went into in a max rate descending turn to the IP, roared in to the circuit and landed. Of course the general had been out of it from the moment they entered the spiral climb...
"How was it?" asked the boss? "Oh, it was very interesting"
Then came the final part of the F-15 trip - an entire raw egg to eat, with shell. The general accepted with good grace.
Working with the French is great, from my experience. Same during our Incirlik tanker dets.