QHI Tricks

[Deeper Blue]

Apologies for the rather mundane post, but I am looking for those little tricks you might have seen in QHI briefs through the years that spiced up the brief and banged home the learning point. The usual suspects of subjects to be covered and trying not to reinvent the wheel but hopefully mounting a rearguard action against powerpoint. Thanks in advance for any help

[wokkameister]

This sounds like an enquiry from someone sat in the QHI groundschool, with a 50 minute lesson coming up.

Firstly, boring as it is, try to stick to the pish they've taught you. They do not like you going off piste.

I once did a lesson on the effects of icing. I googled icing and came up with a long lists of horrendous crashes - all due to icing which was a good introduction as it grabbed the attention. As well as that, if your looking to eat time up at the end, you can refer back to it at the end and discuss how what they have learnt played a part.

Or you could go down the RAF Regt route of picking someone with a vacant look, pose a ridiculously vague question, pounce, and then spend 20 mins taking the urine for getting it wrong.

Good luck anyway

[Mick Strigg]

Get a Stripper in!

I know it's been done before, but it got everyones attention then and I'm sure it would now.

[Saint Evil]

During my CFS groundschool I was trying to demonstrate how cluttered airspace can become during helicopter firefighting, so I got my "students" equipped with a model helicopter and a firebucket on a string to fly their models into a confined space and created chaos. Made the point though and it broke a dull day of lectures.

[Pontius Navigator]

Or you could go down the RAF Regt route of picking someone with a vacant look, pose a ridiculously vague question, pounce, and then spend 20 mins taking the urine for getting it wrong.

We had that during an AIT lecture. The Helo ALM was brieifng the motley assembly of aircrew on swash plates. One Tonka nav looked generally vacant and bored.

The ALM pounced and we had a wonderful Bob Monkhouse moment.

Bob Monkhouse in Privates Progress was day dreaming during a Bren Gun demonstration. William Hartnell pounced and made him reassemble the Bren which he did in short order. Then he confessed he used to make them.

After Tonka mate answered the questions correctly he admitted he had worked at Westlands.

The moral, be careful who you ambush.

[charliegolf]

Pontious

Remember the film- any possibility that it was the singer Tony Newley, beau to Joan Collins in an earlier life?

CG

[Pontius Navigator]

CG, nope. It was two of my favourite actors. I was too young at the time to be distracted by the actresses :)

Definitely Bob Monkhouse and William Hartnell.

[teeteringhead]

Thread Drift Alert

It was Bob Monkhouse and Bill Hartnell, but it wasn't "Private's Progress" but "Carry on Sergeant", the first of the Carry Ons.

And of course "Carry on Sergeant" (the phrase) was a standard pongo dissmissive line which gave rise to a further 29 (??) titles....

...and sorry scroggs, not reeely much to do with military aircrew....;)

[oldbeefer]

Remember from donkey's years ago, the intro to a brief on autorotation started with the instructor throwing a handful of sycamore seeds into the air. Very effective!

[Pontius Navigator]

teetinghead, I am sorry to disagree. Private's Progress with the sequel I'm alright Jack.

[MightyGem]

Now, now you two. Stop arguing. If it was Bob Monkhose then it wasn't Privates Progress (http://www.amazon.ca/Privates-Progress-John-Boulting/dp/1572523840) which starred Ian Carmichael.

Bob Monkhouse and William Hartnell starred in Carry On Sergeant (http://www.amazon.com/Carry-Sergeant-William-Hartnell/dp/B00005MFJF), which was Monkhouse's only Carry On film.

[teeteringhead]

To be fair, I can see where Pontius gets confused (he is a Nav), but he is wrong!

Bill Hartnell played essentially the same character in three incarnations. First in Private's Progress (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049637/) as Sgt Grimshawe in 1956, secondly as CSM Bullimore in the television series The Army Game (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0149416/) which began in 1957, and lastly as Sgt Sutton in Carry on Sergeant (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051453/) in 1958.

To be fair (again!) you have to scroll to the second cast list page in IMDB to find Bob Monkhouse who plays the character Charlie Sage. The object of his daydreams was the delectable Shirley Eaton, later fatally painted by Goldfinger. The characters had recently been married, Miss Eaton plays Mary Sage.....

I'm All Right Jack was indeed the sequel to Private's Progress, with Ian Carmichael playing the Stanley Windrush character in both.

Pontius my old directional consultant, it'll cost you a beer if/when we ever meet ..... and never cross me in a pub quiz.....;)

Memo to self: ... must get out more .... sorry for the thread drift but I am a QHI .......:ok:

[Pontius Navigator]

Teeters, are you entitled to a beer in the desert. I surrender. I liked Ice Cold in Alex too; no nonsense about drinking then.

[Wessex Boy]

I was once B**locked, whilst at ALM grounschool at Finningley, for delivering an ID briefing at station morning prayers on the BTR70 armoured car in the style of a used car salesman....most of the Nav/NCA studes enjoyed it, but the old hairys didn't.

I have spiced up subsequent presentations using various film clips, mickey takes and flying an RC Helicopter over the audience.....

I have also fallen over on entering the room losing my entire slide deck, and then pulled out a spare deck, to start a Disaster Recovery briefing

[ShyTorque]

At CFS as a student beefer I was once required to give a lesson to fellow QFI students and the staff on the aircraft electrical system (:yuk: ) as part of my course assessment. I knew I had better spice it up a little to avoid them all nodding off. :bored:

The night before I made up a large brown cardboard box (of tricks) and punched a small hole in each side near the bottom and stuck large labels with '+ve' and '-ve' by them. I led the end of twelve feet of red battery cable into one hole and knotted the end; also twelve feet of black cable into the other and knotted that. I fastened large brass bowser earthing clips to each of the other ends of the cables.

The time came. The staff sat on the rear row and the studes on the front, as usual. The box of tricks was in full view on the desk.
To start the lesson I asked the two chaps on the ends of the front row to hold an earthing clip each (they were nervous already :E ). I explained that I had a novel way of making them remember the lesson.... and made a couple of wisecracks about how it should be a really positive experience for the one and hopefully not too negative for the other.....

Everyone else, especially the staff seemed to find this a huge joke. So far so good.

The lesson went well. To the amusement of everyone else, I continually reminded the two to hold onto the earthing clips tightly - they weren't very happy about that.

At the end of the lesson, I said the time had come to "reinforce the learning experience". I opened the top of the cardboard box.....

The rear row of staff pilots now leaned eagerly forward to see what would be the fate of the front row "victims". At that point I told all the QFI students in the front row to cross arms and hold hands.

Their faces dropped, but they obeyed - they were all now convinced they were "in the circuit". The staff loved it even more.

I stood behind the box and put my hands inside. Inside was a toy dragster car, powered by a pull cord gyro, borrowed from my son. I pulled the handle and it started revving up with a very loud buzzing noise. As the noise reached a crescendo, I flicked the switch on a small battery pack, which switched on a small red light on top of the box. The faces of my fellow student QFIs was a picture! :confused:

With that, I took the hat pin I had taped to the inside of the box and stuck it into the large balloon filled with talcum powder which was taking up the rest of the space inside. As it went off with a loud bang, blowing a cloud of "smoke" out of the box, the entire front row jumped off the floor, convinced they had been given an electric shock.

To finish off, I then took a flash photograph of them as a momento. Some of their expressions were priceless.

I got a good mark for that lesson.

[MightyGem]

Damn. I wish I'd had that sort of imagination for my briefing on my QHI course. :(

[charliegolf]

There's always the Pyro Pete Bad Kohlgrub attention-getter with the

'live-mini-flare-to-the-chest-in-the-tightly-packed-room'

opener. Never would have believed how much smoke in such a little flare! Everyone paid ever so close attention to his every move after that.

CG

[BEagle]

"I liked Ice Cold in Alex too; no nonsense about drinking then."

I remember it not just for that final scene in the bar (which took several 'takes' to get right - John Mills got quite pi$$ed in the process), but more for Sylvia Syms in that Army nurse's uniform...

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a341/nw969/icecold3.jpg

Yum!

Back to CFS groundschool, I was told of 2 good tricks in the past. One was a chap who demonstrated the safety requirements of plastique - and finished off by firing a detonator embedded in plasticene (which he'd swapped for the plastique when the audience was distracted). The other was a chap who gave a talk on shotgun safety and the need to carry the gun broken, but available for quick action should a pheasant suddenly appear. Whereupon a mate on the floor above dropped a dead pheasant on a piece of string into view outside the window. "Look, there's one of the buggers now!" shouted the lecturer, swung up his 12 bore and blew the window out......

[eagle 86]

Allied to this thread - during my time at Ternhill a Squadron Leader was lecturing my course on groundschool IT. I began to notice that every sentence ended in "....and finally..." so I started to take note the number of times he uttered the phrase. During the end of lecture questioning I indicated that I had noted his deliberate IT error. He went apoplectic on the spot and I thought I was off course there and then!
GAGS
E86