Remember the good old days late 70s and 80s on phantoms

[wf1]

Rememberthe apc,s and deci dets so much beer not enough time

[passpartout]

Oh, god, here we go;)

[Elmlea]

Remember the good old days late 70s and 80s on phantoms

No, unfortunately... :{

[Data-Lynx]

Is that the gate guard at MPA and the bird from which a chunk of wing is now a dancing platform in the Goose?

[BEagle]

Before the days of desert camping, Fitness Tests, Health and Safety, IiP, Pink Wednesday, when EO meant electro-optics and not something else, before yellow jackets, when we toned things down, not lit them up. When Taceval was king....?

Yes. I was cr@p on the F4, but was briefly Operational.

Deci, 'the range, she's a-clos-ed', Enrico's, APCs...... Sqn pushes to Chris's... When there were lots of jets over the North Sea - and even at LL over the UK...

And fun was still allowed.

[wf1]

We are of to valley to fire a sidewinder, @valley missle fired aircraft lands minus lefthand fletcher tank oops missile through tank,retire to bar and think it over ,no its valley and time to go time spent there, 2 days , proberly a waste of time but had a good laugh in those days .

[BEagle]

I didn't get to fire my Sparrow, did I Impiger? 'cos 'someone' couldn't find the Jindi' plus sodding great radar reflector on the MCS.....

And then the range controller flew us out of the safety trace for the 'winder shot just as we got to the first call of "Firing......"

Bugger!

[Zoom]

Never fired a Sparrow but did blast the flare with a 'Winder - well, it got within about 2 ft, which was good enough. And I never fired on the banner, but subsequently had plenty of time on the dart. The dart was (is?) probably easier as a) it was towed by another fighter and was therefore doing a sensible speed and b) a hit was a hit, so you only needed one bullet on target - and then you dumped the incriminating evidence. Is the RAF still using banners or have things changed?

[BEagle]

The banner was great - I managed 52% on one APC shoot. About the only thing I could actually do.

Post-Malvinas we also did air-to-mud gunnery. Very ungentlemenly!

[Zoom]

Ah, air-to-mud ....now you're talking. With tracer and HE and watch them twinkle at a hundred a second....... aaaaaaaaaaaah!.

[Red Line Entry]

Was that a REAL 52% Beags? Or did it involve a crate of beer, a couple of armourers, a cricket stump, a pot of paint, and 2 mins with the banner round the back of the hangar?

[BEagle]

No - a REAL F4 52%!

[Impiger]

I don't remember a thing. Too much beer can do that to a chap I understand!

[PPRuNeUser0172]

You still can have fun Beags, you just need to be a bit more imaginative and find loop holes that the blunites neglect to fill!!

I for one bet that you old 'uns used to winge as much back then as you do now. It is still a damn fine occupation IMHO with plenty of opportunities for fun and "development" as well as operating some pretty good kit, albeit rather limited.

Maybe my 4 years counts for nowt compared to some around these parts, but do keep the good stories coming (the ones involving debauchary and nakedness) and try to keep your comparisons between old and new away from the fun!

Regards

DS

[jimgriff]

It was an F4 that once had the following r/t chat with Aberporth Range Control:

F4: Firing, Firing Now!

ARC: Confirm switches safe?

F4: Switches safe, confirm, playmate, dropkick, caravan

ARC: Wait one

F4: Umm, Aberporth, I think we splashed the playmate?

ARC: Confirmed, return to the gate and RTB, contacy me landline on return......


Oh many a happy evening spent on a hill looking over Cardigan bay watching the flashes in the sky!!!

Actually saw the last live redtop firing by the Lightning F6 MPC.
:{

[wf1]

anyone remember a f4 aircrew g+10 a fine chap

[BEagle]

Yes - a very nice chap indeed!

[Moe Syzlak]

G+10 was on 229/56 a while ago. As for the F4- RAFG was the only place to fly 'em mind.

Beagle: How cr@p?

[jimgriff]

I've told it before, but I'll tell it again.

Mid 80's , Location between Corris and Dolgellau, Mid Wales in the Talyllyn Pass (A487) and I was sat on a motorcycle at traffic lights facing up the valley on the road which hugs the side of the valley. For those of you in the know this is part of the Mach loop and is a flowed valley.

Through the gap at the top of the valley came an F4 on its wing tip and LOW. Levelled out and came towards me.

For some silly reason I flashed my headlight at the rapidly approaching toom.

It went past me about 40 feet away, 100' above the valley bottom, fully loaded for bear.

And sat in the back was the nav giving me the "V"s with white gloved fingers.

I will never forget that........MAGIC!!!:ok:

[A2QFI]

I got "Null Pointes" for my exploits in Aberporth Range. The budget didn't run to operating out of Valley, on detachment, so we launched out of Coningsby. I was to do some 45 deg snap up Sidewinder shot on a target 15K ft above me. All went well until I fired without saying anything relevant to Control, so no telemetry ran; the missile roared past the flare and shot the Jindy down, which wasn't good, but what was worse was that it had just been fitted with some brand new, state of the art high speed rear facing camera, to take piccies of the missile. The whole shebang went to the bottom of Cardigan Bay without even being switched on. I couldn't say anything on the R/T for nearly 5 minutes as my Nav (Guy Woods in case you care) was laughing so loudly at what had happened. I thought silence was marginally more dignified that Guy's hysterics!

[Zoom]

Knock it on the head, Dirty. When you grow up you too will have your chance to to tell it like it really was in the good old days!!

[soddim]

Looks like this is a good place to warm up for the F4 TPDU on 11th November in the usual place.

Anyone else from 1 Phantom Course going?

[MightyGem]

Remember the apc,s
Anyone here who used to visit the Crusaders GC, while on APC in Cyprus, during the early 80s?

[boswell bear]

I remember watchin em at airshows in the days when they flew over the crowd, you know before the Frecce lads swapped paint and spoilt airshows forever. :O

[wf1]

guess you can all remember land away crew training on how to stow that brake chute back in , the old square peg round hole thing , and to finish the struggle ram the door shut whilst pulling the handle down, easy , unless you where not strong enough to shut the door and got caterpulted of the ladder onto the hanger floor in front of a group of Flms sniggering who carried out the task at least 10 times a day

[Widger]

Had a boom dropped on me once during a lul in the exercise "can we do a flypast?" "no problems" came the reply.

Blip disappears into radar overhead....3000 tons of Warship rocks VIOLENTLY! All thoughts turn to him hitting the mast...Captain is WHITE with shock.....I spy the blip coming out the other side going like hot snot...


"Sonic Boom" shouts I, relief all round.

F4 goes back on CAP..(If that was an F3 he would have been "chicken" after that).

Magnificent aircraft, remember the all black one that came into Yeovilton in about 1990. Lovely!!!!!


:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[BEagle]

"guess you can all remember land away crew training on how to stow that brake chute back in"

I always felt like James Herriott with his arm half-way up a cow's ar$e!

[wf1]

who remembers the alcock and brown jet , coningsby 1979 80 ish

[Rhino power]

For your viewing pleasure.....

Alcock & Browne (http://www.airsceneuk.org.uk/hangar/phantoms/Others/xv424.htm)

Black Mike (http://www.airsceneuk.org.uk/hangar/phantoms/111sq/xv582.htm)

Regards, RP.

[engineer(retard)]

Also have a vague memory of pictures of that cab being used for a commerative set of stamps. Any stamp spotters out there to confirm?

Retard

[dolphinops]

Leuchars and Wildenrath.
For me the best of times in the Real Air Force.
Hard work though!!

[Onan the Clumsy]

I always felt like James Herriott with his arm half-way up a cow's ar$e! Your second form biology teacher might have some comment to make regarding that statement. :p

[27mm]

Dolphinops has it right, tho' I surmise from his handle that he was something to do with that bunch of poofters at t'other end of runway. The real outfit was our end. People that spring to mind - Bear, Yoda, Leggy, Dom, Baggers, Gladys, KC. Things that spring to mind - LLAD in a clean wing F4, rorting over JHQ - Reken, Peheim, Gerolstein - the Clutch Beer call - Battle Flight(Educational movies, crap coffee and that god-awful fat frau that used to harangue us from the nearby fence). Better stop now, before I get carried away....

[charliegolf]

Two pages of reminiscences, and no mention of Inverarity (sp) and Lawrence.

Does the memory still sting?

CG

[soddim]

No, not at all, charliegolf. After all, they didn't strafe him in his parachute, so they obviously meant him no harm.

A kill's a kill - even in this case without film.

[27mm]

Absolutely, Soddim. We watched Royston and Alistair taxy back past our HAS and both of us noticed that a Sidewinder was missing. Little did we know at that point.....

[bowly]

And the party train from Wildenrath to Bruggen?

[Lyneham Lad]

taxy back past our HAS and both of us noticed that a Sidewinder was missing. Little did we know at that point.....

Aha - I wondered how long it would take for the Phantom -v- Jag incident to appear! I was sent out to the River Weser area as 431 MU Crash Surveyor, plotting the position of all the wreckage. At first we were not informed of why the Jag had crashed, but were told to pay particular attention to any electronic debris......
As I speak German, I had to deal initially with the farmer on whose land the larger pieces of the wreckage came down on and also with the owner of the adjoining woodland. The farmer was not perturbed at the crash and told me that previously a Harrier and a Belgique Mirage had also come down on his land, so he knew how to make sure he obtained maximum compensation. (Zis field I vill not be able to harvest as there could be debris, and zat field I will not be able to graze my cattle due to contamination from fire extinguishant etc). Interestingly, the crash area was the only open land between the largest petro-chemical refinery in the Rhein-Ruhr area and the power station complex supplying electricity to the same area. It took a little while to recover the second engine as we had to get RE divers etc to find it in the river - rather them than me.

The 431MU crash team stayed in a hotel in Wesel and we caused some consternation in the hotel bar by decimating their supply of 'Wobbly' (aka Warsteiner). It was a glorious May weather-wise (but a Public Holiday long weekend was snookered). At the end of the recovery, the farmer laid on a huge BBQ for the Laarbruch crash guard (who been accommodated under canvas on the farm) and the MU team. A special request from the farmer was could I persuade the crash guard to form up in ranks of three and let his foreman (an ex-Wermacht Feldwebel) march them about. This was duly arranged and amongst much jollity and shouts of "links, rechts" etc, the foreman thoroughly enjoyed himself. And then the beer flowed.......

Ah, great times........:)

[wf1]

On Q 29sqn one sunday washing the car for the 10 th time ovev the week end to pass time away when yes somthing different scrammble time to run out across the pan only to be stopped by the raf copper stop or ill let the dog of .......its a scrammble.. lets see your 1250s anyway when he heard the rh engine start and the crew waving there arms in the air we passed to dispatch the aircraft in 6 mins ............ the incident was reported to ops and funnily enough we never saw the copper again....shame:

[spook]

27mm,

Clearly wrong! Twas us at the right end of the runway! Image is of the AOC's jet borrowed to pay us a visit during APC in CYP. The boys didn't like a cobra set amoungst our Dolphs..and got creative! AOC not best pleased next morning when he couldn't find his steed! Funny though when we got back to Wilders the crewroom looked like a orange and red chessboard!
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c195/phixer/92F4CYP.jpg

[27mm]

Spook,

Good response, if a little outside the 20 second rule. APCs in Cyprus - hmmmm, that's worth a thread in itself....

[wf1]

The pen club remember four phantom sqn in there at once singing and trying to stop the ceiling fans with thier heads , running the gauntlet over the tables with a burning copy of the time stuck out of your a...e and hoping to get to the end before a trip to the med centre

[27mm]

Ah, yes, remember that it was important to use the Times or Telegraph rather than a tabloid, as this gave one considerably more time......

[dolphinops]

I remember a song in the pen along the lines of "Ten green jaguars...."

Regards to the 19/92 Vets.