When I was a Flt Cdt in 1969, it was deemed A Good Thing for us to give up a week of precious leave in order to see something of the Real RAF at an operational station. Which for a couple of us meant RAF Kinloss.
23 hours after leaving my home in Somerset, the overnight sleeper from London and a change of trains at Glasgow, I finally arrived at the Officers' Mess. The next day I went to 201 Sqn to start my attachment. It was quite fascinating watching the rear crew working away in the maritime simulator, with various indications outside showing what was going on.
Then came the day to go flying. Or rather night. With the combined assistance of 4 x Griffons and 2 x Vipers, the beast struggled into the air and set off for the patrol area at around 1000 ft at a sedate pace. Several hours and honk bags later, we reached the area. Much excitement when it was thought that something unknown had been detected, so we set up an attack pattern bouncing around at low level with the rain lashing down. As the target approached, we fired off some form of flare which lit up the sky...and illuminated some Noggie fishing trawler rolling from gunwale to gunwale, rather than any submarine.
A few hours later, we set off home. At one point the ice became rather a worry as the ASI fell to zero, whereupon the co-pilot took stall recovery action with the thunder of the Griffons at 'all ahead flank' and both Vipers adding their assistance. But the aircraft hadn't stalled, it was ice in the pitot-static system, I was told. For much of the way back someone was standing behind the RAAF Fg Off captain illuminating the wing leading edge with a powerful handheld lamp, checking on the ice build up.
We eventually got back after about 14 hours airborne and I could still hear the engines as I crashed out in my bed - to be woken up a little later by the roar of jet engines. The prototype Nimrod was visiting the station and giving a most impressive display!
My conclusion? Shackletons - no thanks. At the end of the week I was driven to RNAS Lossiemouth by a maniac Sqn Ldr in an MT Standard Vanguard and deposited in the care of the FAA. I'd expected to by flying back to Yeovilton in the Sea Heron 'Tilly' which did the rounds on Fridays in those days, but instead of that a Cdr RN mate of my father on FONAC's staff had flown up in a Sea Vampire - and that was my lift home. 90 minutes in a smooth jet aircraft at around 30000ft further convinced me that I wanted nothing more to do with Shacks!
Until many years later when I had a lift in an AEW2 from Lossiemouth to Leuchars, which took about the same length of time as the Sea Vampire had taken to fly to Yeovilton some 30 year earlier!
The ASW crews certainly earned their pay, in my view - but the Mk3 ph3 in which I'd flown was on its last legs and they looked forward with longing to the Nimrod. The rear crew equipment looked ancient and it was clear that the chief weapon in the armoury was experience and crew coordination.
In the AEW role the Shack also relied on some very skilled crews. I was flying a VC10K on Q once when the Bears we were hunting went down to low level and were lost to land-based radar. Skill, cunning and something of a hunch from the AEW Shack spotted them again, in sufficient time for us to achieve cut-off, towing the 2 F-4s with us which topped up, roared off and completed the intercept with a visident and door number shot of the Russians before they left the ADR. Without the Shack, that simply wouldn't have happened!
All rather a bygone age now, but I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to experience the Shack at first hand.