Military AircrewA forum for the professionals who fly the non-civilian hardware, and the backroom boys and girls without whom nothing would leave the ground. Army, Navy and Airforces of the World, all equally welcome here.
An interesting line in the article (and WITHOUT wishing to start another LRMPA topic ) this caught my eye
Quote:
For a short but important time after the invasion of the Falklands, Chile secretly allowed Britain to base a Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft at an airfield on San Felix, a small island off the Chilean coast.
Despite being ex-Nimrod aircrew, this isn't a detachment I remember hearing about. Any other Nimrod mates know anything? Or is this just another example of a secret world, kept so secret that no-one really knew what the force did?
Quote:
26° 17' 36" S 80° 6' 3" W
(sorry not sure how to insert a Google Earth link)
Alexander Haig was an Idiot....how he got to...and maintained a position of importance defies the imagination. But then....it seems that kind of buffoonery exists at those levels in government most everywhere these days.
I fail to understand his logic....by leaking British Military plans he was to prove how impartial he was to the Argies?
How would that have played with the Brits as a way to impress them of his Bona Fides? If I had been Miss Maggie....I would have been on the Talking Bone to my Cowboy buddy and said Haig would have been looking for a new job.
SASless, yes Haig was an idiot, played like a fish on a line by Costa Mendes, behind him he also had the other idiot but much more dangerous Jean Kirkpatrick at the UN talking shop, who I believe hated the British intensely due to Irish republican leanings.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Lincolnshire
Age: 70
Posts: 9,357
Canberra PR9
It was recommended that the two Canberra’s and two C-130’s depart for Belize as a matter of urgency, to pre-position for the journey to Chile. The four aircraft soon arrived in Belize and on 26 Apr 82 the two C-130s, disguised in Chilean markings applied in Belize, arrived in Santiago – the Canberra’s were expected to arrive just after dawn on 30 Apr 82.
In 1987 the then Colonel of the Intelligence School at Ashford said he had seen RAF aircrew in green flying suits, no badges, in Belize. He knew their unit because of the stitch patterns on the flying suits. They would have been these PR9 crews.
The Chilean Air Force Commander-in-Chief at the time of the conflict, General Fernando Matthei, and other Chilean Air Force personnel have provided details of RAF C-130s and Nimrod R.1 operating from Chile.
While US defense secretary Caspar Weinberger proved a staunch ally of Britain from the outbreak of war on 2 April 1982, authorising secret shipments of weapons vital to the task force, the US state department was anything but sympathetic to British interests.
(emphasis added)
If it makes our British friends feel any better, the U.S. State Department has never been particularly sympathetic to American interests either.
) this caught my eye
