The inside of a flying glove could have many uses...allegedly!
'Mongo', our Vulcan Nav Rad, rolled an old pair into a ball, so that the inside showed. This he would sit upon as it brought much relief to his....'bottom problems'.
Back to chingraphs, during my IRT work up on the JP5 in the Summer of 1974, I persuaded the genial US exchange officer to let me fly a PD to Mildenhall, where a couple of USAFA mates who'd been to visit RAFC were waiting to go home. All went fine until the go-around, when we were given what the Instructor later described as "Clearance from Hell" - squawk this, turn on to that, climb to the other and call approach on whatever - readback! I got most of it, but was forced to ask for the frequency again. "You didn't copy it down?" queried the Instructor in a 'you useless git!' tone of voice. Whereupon I showed him the congealed lump of yellow gloop on the end of my pen, saying "Sir, my chinagraph melted!". He fell about with fits of giggles, then later told me that he dined out on the experience for weeks afterwards!
Although the mini-Maglite was OK, I bought a similar item which was smaller and neater from the PX at El Toro MCAS. Uses 2 x AAA batteries and the top is slightly tighter than the bell end of a mini-Maglite - these days it resides in my car's centre console, along with that other quintessential route steal, the excellent Leatherman multi-tool.
Torches again, at RAFC during night flying training we were entrusted with the care of Qty 1 Provost, Jet, Mk5, student pilots for the use of - but were not allowed to use the official night torches. Instead we were told to buy our own and to make sure that it was firmly attached with the usual Learning Command bit of string. So various arse looticle designs appeared from Boots etc. One chap dropped his, then pulled up on the string until he felt a strange 'click!'. It was the seat pan handle which had started to come out. So he carefully pushed it back down, but kept shtum as he thought he'd been in the poo. However, best of all was the late Don Turbett. In one leg pocket he had something from an agricultural supplier with a crocodile clip to fit the glareshield and in the other a large lantern battery, with a cable running up from the battery to the lantern. Given the duty 'total electrical failure' by his QFI, there was a moment of mumbling and fumbling before the entire cockpit was illuminated by something resembling the flash of a nuclear detonation. They both lost night vision for a good few minutes, but Don had made the point. The next course was permitted to use the official RAF torch!
Last edited by BEagle; 23rd Sep 2018 at 08:18.