After we received rather a strange signal from Command Accounts about accommodation in Cyprus, I did some delving. The VC10 AAR force would arrive at Akrotiri and simply ask "Where are we staying?". If it was on-base in single rooms, then fine - the usual kebab in the village was on the cards. So why the signal...
It turned out that some C-130 crews were lying about co-location of the crew and demanding to stay off-base, which had rightly annoyed the Ops staff who had worked out the accommodation plan at a particularly busy time - hence the bollocking signal to all AT/AAR crews.
Another time we were U/S at Andrews waiting for a C-130 to bring a replacement engine. They shambled up to the posh hotel in which were staying with a huge poly bag of leftover inflights (to save spending their allowances) and their 'crew bar' from which they began to drink at reception whilst arguing about room allocation. Ill-mannered trash hauling peasants, WTF did they think they were doing?
But that wasn't quite as bad as a night at Goose. For some reason crews were staying in the Lab Inn. Next day I paid the accom. bill from the FSI and off we went to the RAFU. Where we heard that a Nimrod crew had buggered off without paying their bill, so I was asked to pay it from our FSI - it seems that the Nimrod mob had expected the RAFU to pay. Accommodation - fine. But the restaurant and huge bar bill they'd run up, expecting the Queen to pay? No way! I advised the RAFU admin folk to speak directly to Kinloss and to recover the costs directly from the crew, whose names were known.
The greed and piss-poor behaviour of some crews down route was an utter embarrassment to others and ruined life for them. No-one expected us to be choirboys, but the fraud and lies of some crews really was too much. At one point it got so bad that Nimrod crews were banned from the better hotels at Lajes.
Sorry to sound so negative, but I used to get utterly fed up with the way some people ruined things for the rest of us.
Last edited by BEagle; 6th Mar 2019 at 20:32.