Moortrek Experiences...

[matty_w]

Evening all,

Just wondered if anyone had anything they could share with regards an up-coming moortrek prior to starting at DHFS...

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated but remember not to say anything which may cause another addition to the 'Beadwindow' thread! :)

If you would prefer to PM me than add it to the board, feel free!

Thanks in Advance

M*

[SSSETOWTF]

My big lesson learnt was - don't light fires on peat.

Lying up in a wood for the last night's evasion run, my team got a bit cold and thought we'd get a brew on (pine needle tea of course). After the usual goat of playing with the coke can covert fire, we decided that we were deep enough in the wood to build a 'small' non-covert fire. We got warm, felt very good about ourselves, put the fire out and set off on our run. Several hours later the wood caught fire, and the seat of the fire was our lay-up point..... So don't do that.

Pepparami fits quite nicely in the collar of your cold-wx jacket, but that might be illegal. My favourite things in a go-pack are oxo, chilli powder, toothbrush, toothpaste in a taped up drinking straw, and fill the space in your go-pack with rice.

Finally, don't try to light a fire in a coke can by firing your miniflares into it - that method got tried on my course, and it didn't work out so well.

Best of luck with the weather,
Single Seat, Single Engine, The Only Way To Fly

[Yozzer]

Mate

Listen to the lessons, and keep your spirits up for 5 days of the great outdoors. You will get far too much food for an exercise that is supposed to teach you survival skills.

Moortrek is the epitomy of how tree hugging fluffy we have become,and anybody who fails does not deserve a seat in an aircraft.

Be it misery or a constructive learning exercise is entirely down to your frame of mind and attitude.

[mystic_meg]

If they give you a nice white fluffy bunny, make sure you tw*t it good and proper first time...nothing worse than a squealing bunny being held upside-down by it's hind legs...despatch it swiftly.

[Kirkwall]

Don't allow a navigator to read a map or navigate. :confused:
You will get lost.

[Charlie Luncher]

Dude
Dont get teamed with a Nav as you will probably think about killing them.;)
Dont get caught chasing nice fluffy spring lambs by Farmer Giles with shotgun:sad:
Dont go on a real ale bender the night before, eat an inferno spicy pizza with extra jalapenoes as a BENA is not very soft and fluffy:sad: .
Charlie sends

[BEagle]

Maybe that's what the fluffy bunny is for?

[Ray Dahvectac]

If they give you a chicken, swiftly wring its neck rather than trying to drown it by holding its head underwater as one [overseas] student tried to do. :rolleyes:

[DaveyBoy]

A large amount of aluminium foil can fold up very small and is bloody useful for wrapping around a whole rabbit/chicken leg/breast and sticking on the fire for 45 minutes. You'll be tucking in to a sunday roast while everyone else is still trying to cut meat into 1cm cubes with a blunt knife and boil them three at a time in a tiny cigar tin. :rolleyes:

[Above Datums]

As one 'senior' Flt Lt (read chump!) enjoys saying:

Continue to practise the principals and priorities of survival in the environment you find yourself in!

Tips from me, just get on with it its not that long, put oxo, tampons and tin foil in your go tin. Don't bother with rice as you get given too much food and will not get hungry (unless your a fat get!) oh and keep laughing

Moortrek -what a waste of time!:*

[Spacer]

Above Datums: Oh, that quote has brought back great memories!!!

Matty W: Are you off into the blue yonder on Sat morn?

[Nil nos tremefacit]

They give you too much food?

Not when I did it they didn't. We got a trout between 2 on day 2 and a rabbit between 8 on day 3, but everything else apart from coffee, sweeties and one chocolate cardboard block had to be caught.

I was at Finningley and the NCO aircrew used to join us for the week. We used the same location for course after course (I know, I got recoursed at precisely the wrong moment and did moortrek twice!). Some of the knockers used their initiative and drove up at the weekend beforehand. They dug a hole large enough to contain several beer cans and a few cans of beans etc. I remember how mildly irritated I was as I wasn't in their group and watched the party taking place downstream of us.

It is cheating to preposition your beer, but I wish I'd not been beset by all this officer standards cr*p and had thought of it first!

Second time out was good though. I knew the best location and was partnered with a fisherman who caught a trout. I found an unopened rice packet from an army location and picked a few mushrooms. When the DS arrived we were tucking in to a very fine risotto. I then tried to find a snare left by my previous partner weeks before. Just before I arrived a bunny made use of the snare - it was still warm and cooked up quite nicely.

Sadly I got into all of this survival malarky and did CSRO course, another course at Grantown, jungle survival in Brunei and in Belize and ran sea drills and dinghy drills galore. If I was young and fit I'd volunteer to swap with you guys on moortrek....no really, I would!:ok:

[Gainesy]

Matty,
Give us a grid and ToT and I'll bring my mate's burger van down. Ten quid a bacon butty is very reasonable after a few days out.

[santiago15]

Matty,

Cheat like crazy - 'he who dares' and all. We were checked on the day we left (Sunday) but were not checked when we packed up all our kit on the preceeding Thursday. A senior course tipped us off about this loophole, and we all filled our kit with mars bars etc. That said, I did LSE at Linton, which might be slightly different; I certainly don't remember having too much food!!

Tampons, oxo cubes and rice all went in the go pack. I cut the corner off 7 tea bags and filled them with rice - I thus had a 'tea-bag' portion of rice eery day, which I cooked in a little 'oxo soup'. Also worth taking a biro pen. Pull the pen out and you've a ready-made drinking straw for your oxo soup. Don't bother taking sewing kits or fishing lines in your little tin. They'll just waste precious space for your rice.

Final tip: a little field-porn on the underside of your tobacco tin can do wonders for morale!!!

Enjoy
S15

[Tiger_mate]

....and if the going gets tough, remember this:

*Its not Iraq
*Its not the Falklands
*Its not Bessbrook (though your day will come)
*Its not Afghanistan
*Its not Kinloss

:O Its still relatively warm in the UK.

Your getting paid for it.

If there is nothing else to do but sunbathe, then get a tan. The hardest part of Moortrek is boredom.

There is a Mac Attack waiting for you on friday night.

Though how many others couldnt eat much with their shrunken tummies? ....and one tinnie and your arseholed.

Bedtime reading the back of your go-pack tin.. Anne Frank was it?

[Talking Radalt]

If it's raining......it could be snowing
If it's snowing......it could be dark.
If it's dark and it's snowing....you could be carrying an injury.....
ad infinitum.
Bottom line, no matter how bad, it could be worse.

[Pontius Navigator]

So at the strip search down to socks and underpants this AA was clean. Then the experienced DS told him to take off his spare pair of socks.

£10 flew out.

"Did you see anything?" DS asked. "No sir." he replied.

On the walk-in the sqn ldr idly picked up a stores label. Taped to the back was £20. That went in the DS kitty too.

Food? We had game pie. They had a tiddler and a swede on day 1, some rat-pack on day 3 with a few live chickens. Brief then was to tie it by the neck to a tree and pull hard. The head would lie on the ground eyes open beaking going etc.

[adr]

Not Moortrek, and hardly relevant if you're going out this Saturday to enjoy the countryside with some friends, but a bit of advice I got when messing around in South Wales one cold February: pee is warm. Don't waste it, especially if you have a river crossing to do -- save it for the other side. ISTR the exact words used were, "It warms up your legs something lovely."

adr

[right chopper]

If you get picked up in a helo then blag the crew's packed lunches (they will have extra stuff) but don't nick stuff from their go kits. The DS will bang on about 'dislocation of expectations' but ask the MT driver when he's picking you up (civvy drivers :ok: ) and he'll soon let you know if you'll be back in time for the cheapest happy hour ever...

I cut a straw in half and filled it with tandoori curry powder. It didn't take up much room in my tin and the tandoori tin foil roasted chicken/rabbit was fantastic.


Enjoy the sunshine and lie-ins and trying in the weapon competition is worth a banana.

...."chin it off fellas"

[Talking Radalt]

Hmmmm, on the other hand, is someone who needs heads-up, cheats, or any other help for what is essentially an easy week off camping in the woods really cut out for military life?
Doing it even without any prior knowledge is a walk in the park.
Go on, tell me I'm taking it too seriously :rolleyes:
I recall one exercise where a secret stash of mars bars, beer, tins of beans etc had been pre-positioned but to recover it, the smart-arses who thought they could beat the system walked further in one night to recover said stash than the rest of us walked for the entire week of the exercise (and they eventualy ended up jogging back to make the DS check-of-studes the next morning)

[Tiger_mate]

"DS check-of-studes the next morning"

A DS member stays out overnight also nowadays.:(

Good job the DS dont read this thread with all these cheating tips and lack of integrity prompts:ok:

Enjoy the week boys & girls:E

[Talking Radalt]

Good job the DS dont read this thread with all these cheating tips and lack of integrity prompts
Damn right Tiger_Feet! After all, the staff were never students themselves and wouldn't possibly think one-step ahead of the studes would they?! :p

But as you mention, the integrity issue disappoints.

[ShyTorque]

Ah, Yes, LSE! After the 25 mile moorland walk on day 1, set up camp with the rest and then ask who is coming for a walk to the nearest pub, a mere 8 miles away.

You might get a few takers. But do make sure you don't choose the pub with the staff Landrover in the car park and some very familiar faces in the bar, it's very disappointing after such a difficult day.

(Damn! The 8 mile walk back was a fair bit harder than expected without a pint or two of Theakston's to gee us up..... :( )

Make sure you actually KILL the chicken before plucking it naked, rather than stunning it with a stick. It is quite upsetting when it wakes up and runs away squawking while you are out collecting firewood! Silly buggers! Gave the rest of us a good laugh though!

Don't, having got through the strip search and enforced complete cold weather clothing change (to prevent twenty pound notes being sewn into labels) leave all your money on the bus. Plonker! But the staff loved those drinks it bought....

DON'T ever drink ANY ground water without purifying it, however thirsty you get. We walked into a new campsite after a long night route march / E&E exercise and one of our less sensible brethren drank directly out of the river as he claimed he was going to die if he had to wait an hour for the "Puritabs" to work. Next day, he realised that it was a sheep field and judging by the extreme evidence on the ground all around the bank where he drank from, EVERY sheep had a gross case of tapeworms. Not a pretty thought. He spent the next two days making himself throw up and feeling very sorry for himself, much to our great disgust!

Finally, NEVER try to be REALLY clever like one idiot on a previous course who put money in a cigar tube and hid it where the sun don't shine. He would tell you how it causes severe problems when it disappears upwards during the long trek. There's always ONE! :ooh:

[Yeller_Gait]

I recall when I was on moortrek some 20 years ago we were given a fluffy white bunny at the midway point. Not only did it make a fine meal for our team, but at various times it was used as a glove puppet (we must have had an ex-butcher in our team, and cannot remember his name), and also used as the ball in an improvised game of baseball, all we needed to do was find a suitable stick. ..... hours of entertainment

[Pontius Navigator]

Cheating is all part of the game. In Germany they didn't follow the rules and always tried to out wit the goons.

On our Moortrek the studes were advised not to consider hiding up a tree as it was cold, windy and dangerous.

The only problem for my stude who did hode up the tree was that he was not caught on the first sweep and had to stay up there until the second sweep 6 hours later. We missed him that time round too.

He was also mighty pissed off with the 3 guys he was teamed up with as they were not on his course. Never-the-less he was the only one to get through RV1 undetected before the exercise was abandoned. His team was also 3rd off the blocks. Not bad going.

I think he made a fine copper in the end 'cause he couldn't navigate!

[Jimlad]

I can just imagine some of the journalist scum who read this site for easy stories (hello Sunday Express) using this thread for a forces bashing "RAF Top Guns kill cute White Rabbits" story.

[SmilingKnifed]

Above Datums, would be the same Flt Lt with the annoying 'good to go' catchphrase (sounds a bit like Badger from the kids TV show Bodger and Badger for those who remember it:E).

A nav will invariably get you lost and not own up to it.

Don't have a bet about how much you can eat when you get back, most painful twenty quid I ever won! :yuk:

Enjoy, at least it's still summer!

[Above Datums]

SmilingKnifed

Yeah sounds like him, did he have the extra 5 inches of DPM sewed on the bottom of his CS95 trousers so they fit him when you went through?

[Set Me Free]

Just make sure you go to Flicks on the night you return just to complete the experience! Cheapest night you will have!

[JTIDS]

If you can sneak in some cash though the bus will stop at a service station during the drive up north... an ideal time to stock up up treats for the rest of the week

[charliegolf]

JTIDS

Scotch Corner- we used (as DS) to let the studes stock up- like we didn't know- and then search them again when they got off the bus.

Cruel but fair, we used to think!

CG

[Pontius Navigator]

Ours used the greasy spoon at the A1M. Filled up on bacon, beans etc.

Now those that didn't think to pack toilet paper . . .

The BINA makes even bronco feel like soft tissue.

[JTIDS]

CharlieGolf

..... you didn't catch me :p :p :p

Having said that was some years ago....

Moortrek, the course which made me realise how much i hated doing survival (even if looking back on it in the sweet light of retrospect it wasn't really that bad) and forced me into the career I now have...

SAR, go out and rescue other people who've done the survival bit already.

[PileUp Officer]

I had a great time! I reckon it's worth putting a bit of toilet paper in your go-pack - with the amount you eat you won't need much and it beats getting a papercut on your arse (as one member of my course did!).

I also echo the point about purifying the water - another guy on my course didn't and he got pretty sick but managed to hide from the DS.

I know 2 guys who have failed the course and from what they've told me it seems to be more a 'clash of personality' with the guy clad in hotpants than anything else.
But then, they would say that!

[johnfairr]

Back when I did Moortrek in the early 70s, we kicked it off with a dip in the North Sea courtesy of an RAF ASR Launch from Bridlington, being towed behind it for a few hundred yards until the damn harness released. 4 hours in a dinghy, then picked up and dropped off in the NYork moors in December. Bl00dy cold for the whole week!

jf

[Tiger_mate]

'clash of personality'

Worth remembering that there is more to Moortrek than simple survival skills. The students may be expected in the future to motivate their passengers and crew in a real survival situation, and use their albeit basic survival and location (evasion) skills to formulate and execute a logical plan of action.

If the Captain himself is a whinging pathetic little p ric k, then he does not deserve the responsibility that goes with being the captain of an aircraft. 'clash of personality' , is often used by low life with poor attitude who think the world owes them something.

T_M
CSRO

[Cockney Geezer]

Ahhh, Moortrek what memories. That was a difficult one - wondering around a small disused airfield in Norfolk, sunbathing when ever the DS wern't looking! Seem to remember a load of trench-digging Rockapes having a slagging match with the inmates of the adjacent prison during the night navex.

How many catchphrases did above mentioned Flt Lt have?? I remember:

"Good to go"
"Not on this exercise"
"You're existing, not surviving!" (As the entire course sleeps in instead of checking snares)

And he always said them whilst imitating slitting his own throat, ha ha!

CG

[SmilingKnifed]

Geez,

Sounds like we were on the same course (during foot and mouth). Did you eat a load of rockape packed lunches as well?

[Cockney Geezer]

Smiling Knifed,

No, I think I was the course in front.

Seem to think the last time I saw you was at YH, on my wings grad. You and our mutual mate the now-rockape, were both mullered, as american footballers, on the almighty beater before the party had even started!

So are you a fully ticked up civvie driver now?

CG

[SmilingKnifed]

Not fully ticked up, should be after Christmas (come on in, the water's lovely!). Faced Met and Gen Nav exams today mind!

I remember your grad very well(ish!) and still hear a bit from our newly qualified rock mate.

[JNo]

My one top tip:

Make sure you don't forget to put a puritab in EVERY container of water you drink! I managed to forget once and ended up getting really bad sh1ts. As a result I managed to get to the Manston page in my BINA purely from wiping! THAT"S PAGE 113!!!

Worst poo took me from Cork all the way to Edinburgh! Particularly enjoyed wiping my arse with EGYD though!!!

[maxburner]

Johnfair has reminded me of the Mortrek experience. Thrown off the RAF launch out of Bridlington, bobbed about in the sea for a while, dragged out by helicopter (Wessex if I remember correctly) and then driven up onto the NY Moors in a covered truck. We had to hike to Rapers Farm, as I recall. There was the usual buggeration factor thrown in, like pointless marches and some escape and evasion, but I seem to remember the whole thing as a bit of a laugh, but I was with a good bunch of chaps. What they would call character building, I suspect.

[PPRuNeUser0139]

Did mine in the early seventies (Bridlington, Rapers Farm etc)... My abiding memory is of waking up from a deep coma in a lukewarm bath in the block - with a black ring around the waterline worthy of the Torrey Canyon...

sv

[richlear]

Moortrek in winter 1984...Found a bunch of TA pongos leaving that morning who very kindly buried a stash of grub for us......Top blokes!

Spent our time smoking rollies & eating.

[ProfessionalStudent]

I've done it 3 (yes, THREE) times and I've learnt stuff and enjoyed each one. My tips...

Make THE BEST shelter you possibly can. A few extra minutes making it good will pay massive dividends. Insulation, insulation, insulation.

Have a real go at the tasks they set you. You may think they're bolleaux, but they beat sitting around on your ass waiting for it to get dark.

Find an old bean tin for hot drinks at night. Put 2 tea bags in your go-pack, a couple of those hotel sachets of coffee (don't worry about the old "caffeine dehydrates you" - water shortage is not an issue) and a couple of Knorr chicken stock cubes in too. A hot drink at bedtime, as it gets dark, is worth it's weight in gold and sets you up for a good night's kip. In reality, that's all you really need a fire for (unless it's really chuffing cold).

Never lit a fire set yet. Not one. They're rubbish.:{

[Pontius Navigator]

ProfessionalStudent, you weren't ACA with attitude about 1989, and the £20 in your sock, were you <g>?

[ProfessionalStudent]

Non. Pas moi...

[Pontius Navigator]

PS,

Clearly a lot more attitude about than one might suspect.

Yonks ago our little trek was Salisbury Plain. Junior courses played hunter force. The plan was a cunning one.

Hunter force would deploy along two roads north and south of Imber Clump. Evaders would then be sent off left and right so half would go through each hunter force.

When all evaders had passed through the first trap both HF were withdrawn and repositioned on the e-w road to west in IC. Evaders would be tired, crossing a double strength hunter force and also bumping in to each other.

I have never been so cold and peed off lying in a tank track rut trying to keep out of site and warm as the water all about froze. No one saw any evaders the entire night.

Working to a pre-arranged plan the evaders had, to a man, doubled through the HF lines before the HF deployed and made an RV in a pub in Warminster.

No way they could recourse or chop an entire course.

[ProfessionalStudent]

When I did my first one in 92, overheard that the hunter force were a bunch of engineers on the same kind of do. With that in mind, we did all the things you weren't supposed to. Followed line featyres, crossed through the middle of fields and such like. We saw them a few times but were too busy hiding from their own DS! As a result we managed to get to the final RV way ahead of everyone else and gorged ourselves (as much as you could anyway) on veggie soup and bread. By the time the last team arrived, we wer gonking for Britain.

All 3 have been quite similar, but the I have noticed that these days you get a damn sight more food than you used to. There's nothing better than trout baked in tin foil over a wood fire...:ok:

[mini]

wasn't like that in my day, if you got caught you were in deep sh*t, if you got through you got processed cheese sambos & stale tea from the back of a Bedford.

But then... you never got caught... :ok:

[Pontius Navigator]

Mini,
Reminds me of the stories our instructors told us of the 50s. Mass E&E, sort of one end of Yorkshire to the other, or further, wearing clothing rejected by Oxfam. Whole populace enlisted to watch and report.

I remember in the 60s a minor repeat. A sqn ldr at one of the Yorkshire stations, CF I seem to recall but that is speculative, was 'escaping' and his photo appeared in the national press broadsheets, ie pre-Sun when the Mail was a real paper.

Everyone was warned to watch out for him etc. Don't recall the outcome but unlike the modern pound a mile for charity this was pure large scale E&E.