Who was 'the boss' on a Nimrod?

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Who ran the ship? Was it the Tac Nav, the AEO, or perhaps the senior pilot? Or could it have been any of them?

[Pontius Navigator]

The Boss was any one of those. The guy that ran the show was the Tac Nav.

[Bannock]

The flight Engineer, period !
The grumpy gits always acted like they were having one.

Hat, coat, taxiiiii!

[Shack37]

The one who brought the pies.

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Ta Pontius. That was my understanding.

Bannock - yeah, I can see that. ;)

[Willy Miller]

The FO - he had the impress!!!

[alisoncc]

Yeh but, Pontius Navigator would say the Nav was I/C, wouldn't he. In reality the ground crew were in charge. If they didn't pull out the power plugs and take away the chocks then the bird wouldn't go anywhere.

[Winco]

It would really depend on what we were doing, but in the main I think that on Ops sorties, the Lead wet or Lead dry were in charge!
It was a brave man who took either of them on, that is for sure!
Ahh, very happy days
Winco

[The Old Fat One]

Me

/thread

[Wensleydale]

surely it would be the wife of the ......

[Skeleton]

Whoever was in charge of the DCS. :}

[Pontius Navigator]

It would really depend on what we were doing, but in the main I think that on Ops sorties, the Lead wet or Lead dry were in charge!
It was a brave man who took either of them on, that is for sure!
Ahh, very happy days
Winco

Quite so :)

The 'norm' had been for the Lead Wet to declare 'contact buoy 9' at which point the Tac Nav would leap in to action and start firing off sonobuoys left and right. The Route Nav would try and find buoy 9 on his spidergram and the Pilot would set course for buoy 9. The dry team would then reload the buoys that the Tac Nav had scattered. The AEO mean while . . .

However, after one Irishman's pay rise (The winco would say well deserved) the MACR got more pay than a lowly flt lt (non-spec aircrew). This changed the game.

The Lead Wet to declare 'contact buoy 9' at which point the Tac Nav would slip his headset off one ear, swivel round, and shout "what do you recommend Mr Cross?" After due consideration, comparison of last months pay check, Mr Cross might respond with 'mini barrier one MDR spacing down track". The Tac Nav would then finish his pie, set a steer to the first free marker and consider the advice. The Route Nav would try and find buoy 9 on his spidergram and the Pilot would watch the autopilot. The AEO mean while . . .

[Sandy Parts]

the AEO would meanwhile would be wondering how to spend his PAS wages, having had the best of both worlds: i.e being a knocker while young enough to make the most of donny and being a zob while needing the extra income to pay off the first wife.....;)

[racedo]

Reminds me many years ago on a trip where once on the bus half a dozen people were arguing who was boss before bus had even left.
Driver just got off and and lit a fag which he leisurely smoked sitting on a wall close by.
After he finished he got back on and reminded everyone, "I'm driving, I'm ultimate boss, any problems get the :mad:off".

[Winco]

Pontius Navigator

...most 'good' AEOs would simply sit back and do absolutely nothing!

An interfering AEO was trouble frankly, and the wise ones would sit on their hands and just let the Leads get on and run the show.

Not that I've goty anything against AEOs of course, every crew should have one, if only for entertainment value!

Standing by for some heavy flak

Winco

[AA48]

I think it was pretty well summed up during the conversation whenenver the captain needed to go off intercom:

"Tac Nav, Captain, are you on?"
"Afirm Captain"
"Roger, Captains off, Third Dry you've got it!":8

[Ron Cake]

Winco

AEOs as entertainment? Exactly!

Some may be unaware that AEO stood for 'Air Entertainments Officer.' Our role was to provide light entertainment for the rest of the crew during long nav stages or transit flights. Some AEO's told jokes while others did readings. But I chose to sing over the intercom. Typically, I did selections from 'Fiddler on the Roof' and other tuneful shows. As you can imagine I got lots of requests from the rest of the crew. Alright, some of them were a bit hurtful, but you just had to stick with it.

So winco, no flak from me.

[Pontius Navigator]

The beauty of two intercom systems.

[Dimmer Switch]

We had Intercoms?!? No-one ever told me that:}

[Barksdale Boy]

At South Cerney in 1965 I seem to remember a pilot flight commander saying, without a trace of irony, "When you get out into the wider Air Force you will meet AEOs - rough diamonds mostly, but many with hearts of gold."

[Winco]

I seem to recall on a GSU check ride, the nice GSU staff gave us a scenario and after some discussion went through the crew asking what each of us would do. When it got to the AEO he replied 'Whatever the Lead dry tells me to do!'
The perfect answer Dave!!

[Gene Genie]

We had a Sqn Ldr (ex wet) AEO who would saunter back to radar with a quizzical look on his face. If the radar looked like (as he termed it) a pizza, he would amble contentedly back to his beam window with a smile on his face, admire the view and monitor FM.

But it's just a rumour...
Gene

[Lincolnshire Poacher]

I seem to remember that the AEO was there to sign for the secrets because neither the nav nor the pilot would (or couldn't be trusted to) so he did have a job after all..........;)

[Daf Hucker]

Things were different on the R1 :suspect:

[INT_QRU]

In my mind a good AEO was a great asset. As a new lead dry it was comforting to have someone there with some experience to answer stupid questions.

I was lucky - I had a succession of good AEOs -the good ones seemed to be in short supply and great demand.

Rich

[Sandy Parts]

Daf Hucker - the AEO/Mission Supervisor on the R1 was happy to let the double-winged master race take on the 'Captain' title and all the triv that went with it - meanwhile, they got on wth the mission (and coping with way more than 2 intercoms/radios....) - all history now though,:{

[Janda]

When I was a young dryman on 201 Sqn in the mid 70's my crew operated without an AEO for some months. The CO authorised us to fly with either the lead dry or wet acting as AEO dependant on what we were doing. We only got an AEO because we were deploying to Singapore on Mardet. The crew operated very well and in fact was selected for the Aird Whyte on return from Singapore.

[PARALLEL TRACK]

Sandy Parts - not always an AEO as the MISCOM!

[The Old Fat One]

So winco, no flak from me.


And none from me either, because.....


the AEO would meanwhile would be wondering how to spend his PAS wages, having had the best of both worlds: i.e being a knocker while young enough to make the most of donny and being a zob while needing the extra income to pay off the first wife.....http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/wink2.gif


....it seems Mr Sandy Parts has all ready written the "pink".

Janda,

Ditto 206 mid 70's with a very well known MAEOp recce instructor taking on the role. But also in those days, AEO stood watches on the sensors, did the lead wets role (while the lead wet was on radio) and, as a dry man, I was a dab hand at the 1C sonics on which I tracked a foxtrot and a juliet on the same day.

So it was all just a little different back then. Wouldn't we all love to do it all again?

[blimey]

Didn't they have a CSD (cabin service director) - they're the one in charge on all BA aircraft. :hmm:

[Pontius Navigator]

blimey, yes at one point.

The transport force folded a lot of aircraft and had loads of loadmasters going spare (bit like Nimrod crews last year). We all got one each. No one worked out exactly what we were to do with them.

We muddled through and one, to be Fair, even got a commision through this service to maritime :). Our guy was worked up to load sonobuoys, load the retro, take photos, order the rations and cook pies.

He had b*lls of steel. He was taking pictures from the port beam when the May rolled in to us. The May pushed, we pulled, and the loadie got it all on film.

There was a processing error at the photo section and the negatives got destroyed. After we had seen the evidence :)

[Sandy Parts]

PARALLEL - very true - amazing how much interest there was once the Nav brevet looked likely to become extinct... All one big happy family now, just don't mention the different PAS ceilings for those doing the same job / needing the same retention incentive...:ooh: Anyway, in the end, it was always the senior MACr everyone deferred to and that was for both MR2 and R1 :D

[Daf Hucker]

Sandy Parts - I beg to differ ;)

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Didn't they have a CSD (cabin service director) - they're the one in charge on all BA aircraft.

Ah, the Crew Sandwich Dispenser! :E

[Brian 48nav]

Dare I put my head over the parapet and ask,'What is a Lead Wet and Dry'?

[Shack37]

Dare I put my head over the parapet and ask,'What
is a Lead Wet and Dry'?


Thanks Brian, I was hoping somebody else would ask:ok:

[oxenos]

Lead wet made tea, lead dry made sarnies.

Dons bone dome and runs for cover.

[INT_QRU]

There was normally a team of 7 what might be termed 'sensor operators' on the maritime Mk 2 Nimrods. These were split into a 3-man acoustics team (wet men) and a 4-man non-acoustics team (dry men). Each team was coordinated by a lead operator, hence 'lead dry' or 'lead wet'.

The leads were appointed by the squadron and in my day (mid-late 80's) a competent operator could expect a lead slot on their second tour, depending on how many people had been pissed off in the interim.

The wet team manned the acoustics system and the dry men rotated between the dry sensors, normally hourly. One dry man was dedicated to the radio position and the other three rotated between ESM, radar and 'spare' dry who normally did the sonobuoy loading, made the tea and generally did 'stuff'

As lead I tended to stay off the gear and monitor the less experienced guys, especially if it was a more dry orientated sortie.

Depending on the sortie type there would be a couple of bods kicking around to help out with the loading as the dedicated acoustic sorties could be quite hectic each time the nav changed his mind on which buys to drop.

Hope this helps


Rich

[Mend em]

Blow me - I always thought they were called wet and dry because when used together there was a certain amount of friction, but the task was smooth in the end:ok:

[thunderbird7]

I thought the AEO was there to burn the secrets as they fluttered away in the breeze on a North African airfield....

[gowaz]

Rings a bell!
Was it a stuck airbrake,low fuel, bad weather in Gib?

[1771 DELETE]

Everyone took it out on the AEO, the AEO took it out FI fruit machine.

[Union Jack]

Dare I put my head over the parapet and ask,'What is a Lead Wet and Dry'?

Dare I put my head over the parapet and ask "What is a Nimrod?"

Despite being dark blue and one who was welcomed on board on more than one memorable occasion, so I actually do know the answer. I just wanted to highlight that I still cannot believe how incredibly stupid our lords and masters have been in losing such incredible hard-won expertise in such a cavalier manner.

Jack

[Mickj3]

I thought it was the chef.:)

[muttywhitedog]

The bloke who started it up, put it in the air and put it on the deck again. They can dress it up whatever way they want, but the rest were merely passengers.

[Charlie Luncher]

Mutty
In a tight crew the pilot would also put the aircraft where the Sgt told him to, so while some were passengers, some just drove the bus!

CRM does stand for Capt reputation management after all:E
In case of a bad day I do like to remind the Banana munchers that the last thing to go through their mind could be my arse:eek:
From my experience it was the best man for the job regardless of his brevet or ego, I was lucky all 11 breeds of mine in ISK are good lads with the odd guest appearance on other crews as well.
Charlie sends

[The Old Fat One]

No Charlie,

Mutty is spot om, passengers is wot we was.

And Mutty, to misquote the filum...

On Squadron Leader specialist aircrew pay..."I'll be your passenger anytime"

I'll even bring you a sandwich...but sniff it first before you consume :E

Did I mention that under AFPS 75 Spec Aircrew Pay Rates are pensionable? Now excuse me, I think my new merc is ready for collection.

[Biggus]

Regarding the original question......




Who cares?

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

There was normally a team of 7 what might be termed 'sensor operators' on the maritime Mk 2 Nimrods. These were split into a 3-man acoustics team (wet men) and a 4-man non-acoustics team (dry men). Each team was coordinated by a lead operator, hence 'lead dry' or 'lead wet'.

The leads were appointed by the squadron and in my day (mid-late 80's) a competent operator could expect a lead slot on their second tour, depending on how many people had been pissed off in the interim.

The wet team manned the acoustics system and the dry men rotated between the dry sensors, normally hourly. One dry man was dedicated to the radio position and the other three rotated between ESM, radar and 'spare' dry who normally did the sonobuoy loading, made the tea and generally did 'stuff'

As lead I tended to stay off the gear and monitor the less experienced guys, especially if it was a more dry orientated sortie.

Depending on the sortie type there would be a couple of bods kicking around to help out with the loading as the dedicated acoustic sorties could be quite hectic each time the nav changed his mind on which buys to drop.

Hope this helps



Many thanks for that. But I thought a Nim crew was 12 total. With 7 sensor operators, 3 flight crew, nav, AEO, and Tac Nav that makes a crew of 13. :confused:

[MFC_Fly]

SSD,

It used to be 13 until the change in the acoustics processor and user interface. That saw the reduction in crew compliment by one wettie, so the crew became a team of 6 operators (4 dry, 2 wet), 2 navs, an AEO and 3 up front: total 12.

[The Old Fat One]

SSD

Over the years the old lady had a lot of crew permutations...and with various relaxations in staff orders, even the formal crew compliment could vary a little bit.

However...the MR1 was designed with a crew of 12 in mind and the MR with a crew of 13. As MRC_Fly points out, the MR2 reduced by 1 wettie circa 2001 (but not without the mother of all p1ssing contests between various factions).

For interest, The MRA4 was going to have had a crew of 10 or 11 (sure someone knows the state of that dilemma at the time it was binned) which would have been sporting since the MRA4 still had manual (hand held) photography and manual sonobouy launchers.

Not to mention the incessant galley demands from the lardy boys at the pointy bit.


Regarding the original question......




Who cares?


Who cares about anything on Pprune? It just for us internet losers to get a bit of social interaction isn't it?

PS And before anybody leaps in and has a go at an AEO talking about galley duties, I'll have you know that I cut up a dairy cream sponge in 1983...and I wasn't even asked.;)

[Shack37]

PS And before anybody leaps in and has a go at an AEO talking about galley
duties, I'll have you know that I cut up a dairy cream sponge in 1983...and I
wasn't even asked.http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/wink2.gif


Yeah but did you share it?:cool:

[thunderbird7]

And I thought the first judgement on who made a decent skipper/crewman was who could be arsed to make a pot of tea. Forget this ASW stuff, it was all about the cooking :)

[The Old Fat One]

Did I mention that under AFPS 75 Spec Aircrew Pay Rates are pensionable


Banter alert...not meant to be taken seriously, stand down the legal team:p:p


Yeah but did you share it?http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/cool.gif


Not as such...I had half of it just after on task and the other half after my mid flight nap.

[Courtney Mil]

Was it the same on the Shacklebomber?

[Shack37]

Was it the same on the Shacklebomber?


Can't speak for normal trips, being ex ground crew but on the occasions we tagged along to places like Bodo eg it was cordon bleu compared to what awaited on arrival. Norm Sewell (206 & 37) came highly recommended.

[Courtney Mil]

So whale blubber and raw fish sandwiches weren't so good then?

[TT2]

"I'll have you know that I cut up a dairy cream sponge in 1983...and I wasn't even asked.http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/wink2.gif"

These defence cuts are ever so sad. In the 70's we used to get Artic Roll. No expense spared.......mind you, Nimrods were so boring to fly around in, they should have been dispensing opium.:ooh:

[Pontius Navigator]

Nimrods were so boring to fly around in, they should have been dispensing opium.:ooh:

I'll give you a mad comp or ASW with no sonobuoys but what about a MAD trap at 400 feet on a pitch black night or charging round the North Sea with the cloud bottoms around 200 feet?

[TT2]

Try a Shack on night minimums back into Lossie with a sulky engine and an even grumpier FE. Nimrods were designed to carry rich totty tourists. Never met a Nimrod pilot that could do any other than play video games.

Stands back and awaits abuse........:D

[BEagle]

No stick = no vote! End of.

Simples.

[ExAscoteer]

Simples.


I suppose one does have to let the Self Loading Freight have their fantasies every now and then. :p

[Roland Pulfrew]

TT2

Never met a Nimrod pilot that could do any other than play video games.

Video games? :eek: Uccers (or Uckers) certainly, but video games???

And what BEagle says. :E

[BEagle]

I suppose one does have to let the Self Loading Freight have their fantasies every now and then.

You mean that Bandar-Log in the back?

[ExAscoteer]

Indeed Beagle.

Especially King Louie :E

[Shack37]

So whale blubber and raw fish sandwiches weren't so good then?


You knew you were in trouble when the fish started nibbling at the blubber.

[TT2]

3,523 Hours proveable + minutes as P1 Mil. Off to the pub pal or Tescos. You will fit in nicely.:D

[Avionker]

No stick = no vote! End of.

Simples.

Of course unless you're flying single seat you're not really making the decisions are you? The guy, or guys, behind you are telling you where to go, how fast, and at what height..... :E

[Courtney Mil]

Advising, maybe?

[Sandy Parts]

autopilot on - steer enabled - file updated by radar - aircraft adjusts heading - pilot goes "where are we going to now?" - nav/lead dry/whoever puts him out of his misery.... Maybe the bloke/woman signing for the jet in the F700 was the 'boss'? :ok:

[Union Jack]

In the 70's we used to get Artic Roll.

Which presumably arrived in an "arcticulated" lorry .....:)

Jack

[TT2]

Naw' Guv' - used to pick the grub up from the bus passing the surly rations Nimrod section. On Shacks we broiled our own.:ok:

[5aday]

In the early days(1970s) on 203sqn the aeroplanes were virtually brand new and I was the only singlee on the crew I flew with (crew 2) and also the most junior - so I did the rationing (I was told to).
I decided to have a no tins policy (the amount of tins for sharing out after the trip was ridiculous on Shacks at BK and the on board food was really crap ) so in Malta every trip was catered for a full nine hours for fourteen bods (because the Nimrod was so new we invarioubly had guests though they never really ate anything as they were sat in ordnance trying to hold on to their innards) so as crew we enjoyed a wonderful diet of fresh fillet, [steak cooked on board (usually setting off the fire/mist alarms in the Aileron Hyd bay)] along with salads etc., along with fruit and joghurt for snacks. The mess used to make up some really wonderful sauces for us in flasks( bourguignon etc). MCT trips were usually better than some of the better restaurants downtown in St Juliens.
After I was posted back to Kinloss, apparently it reverted (sadly) back to tins again as all of the crew were scalees and nobody could be bothered.
The boss - at that time (Keefy) was at the pointy end but briefly I joined Soggys crew on 206sqn, - he was a Nav Captain and very good at it as well IMHO and in later life on 120 quite a few 'captains' were rear crew.
Never an issue.

Quite happy days.

[Winco]

I think this is one of those few occasions when the Americans have it right over us, with their AC Commander and TACO positions in the aircraft.

Being up at the pointy end of a Nimrod meant that we were not in the best place to 'use' the aircraft. Even with the best situational awareness in the world, unless you sat in front of the TAC screen, you were not best placed to use the Nimrod to the best of its capability..

As a P1 Captain, I would always give up tactical responsibility to the TAC Nav who in turn would disperse that responsibility to the Lead Wet or Lead Dry depending on the sortie profile. A pilot captain is NOT the person for the job, but either the AEO or TAC Nav is.

Never had the arctic roll, but ate plenty of the DCSs, which probably accounts for my ever-so-lightly over weightless!!

[Pontius Navigator]

Winco, this was also true of the AEW Shack and the E3. In the case of the former the PI/Captain thought he was in charge but it was the Taco that decided where they barriered, what height they flew and how long they remained on task. It was usually PLE.

[muttywhitedog]

But if there was no pilot, the only thing you and the rest of the non-pilots would have flown would be a model aircraft on a sunday morning.

[Pontius Navigator]

and if the back end hadn't come along for the ride there would have been no one to shut the door, make the tea, or to tell him where to go after he left the circuit :)

[Avionker]

And if it wasn't for the groundcrew none of you would have gotten of the ground.....:)

[Winco]

Avionker
Can't argue with that!
Without you guys, none of us would get in the air!
Thanks!
Winco

[Sideshow Bob]

No stick = no vote! End of.

I remember one pilot saying this to a rather senior Air Eng in the sim once. He switched off the tank cocks sat back and watched. Point proven :E

[Biggus]

When did this "...no stick no vote...." attitude come in?

Over the years I've read many books written by WW2 bomber pilots, who are generally highly complimentary, indeed appreciative, towards the rest of their crew and their contribution to the mission. Maybe that was because they all took the same risks and had a very real possibility of all dying together.

Don't tell me, "no stick no vote" is just banter.....













My own attitude is that pilots are wonderful, indeed so wonderful that every aircraft should have at least two!


Mind you, engines are better, so much better that every aircraft should have at least four engines!!!

[Mickj3]

I was in Malta at the same time as 5ADAY and the rations/meals given to the 203 crews were lavish. In fact so lavish that the first prize in our sections xmas draw was "a meal for two in a nimrod".:)

[Winco]

Biggus

Despite what you might think, I can assure you that it is, in the main, idle banter from those of us at the pointy end. There is only really one occasion when the term applies, and that is in a single crew aircraft.

Anyone who has flown in a big multi crew aircraft knows better.

Thank you for thinking so highly of pilots, and I agree it's better to have two, even if its just to keep each other company!

Winco

Ps Engines are good, but Not better Sir!