xv292,Marietta and the Royal Review
When 292 was painted up for the 25th anniversary of the Herc in RAF service I was selected as the GE to go with the aircraft to visit Lockheeds at Marietta on a little jaunt master minded by OC 30 Sqn, Wg Cdr Main ( also known to many as the Fat Controller ). We took a random selection of bods from round the station on the trip to represent the people who supported the Herc operations but didn't get much recognition.
Whilst at Marietta we had a tour of the plant, a briefing on the future of the Herc , mainly to do with the HTTP frame they were trialing things on,( leading edge slats for one ) and a burst of air to air photography with a B25 Mitchell as the photo plane. Trying to get the Herc in frame over the plant was a bit of a struggle until the captain, (Paul Obourne if I remember correctly ) told the guy flying the B25 to fly straight and level and we would do the positioning. The B25 had had the tail fairing removed so the photographers could shoot out the back and Oby tried to give them so real good close ups by getting the probe within about 15 feet of the B25.
During the trip we took the airframe to Denver to pick up some Marines back from an exercise and then brought everybody home.
I also went with 292 to the Royal Review where we were fortunate as although it was raining we lined up to meet Her Majesty and Prince Phillip under the tail of the aircraft in the relative dry, a bonus that was appreciated by more than just us judging by Prince Phillips comments at the time.
I often wondered why I got selected to go on these trips and thought it might have been that I marshalled the first Herc onto the Farms dispersal at Thorney Island way back in 1967, you never know.