Back in the days of the Nimrod AEW project, it was mooted in the coffee bar that there may be female fighter control branch personnel posted onto the aircraft. (This in the days before GD was open to female). This was objected to in no uncertain terms by one of the older Spec Aircrew navs who thought that women should be in support roles on the ground and not in the air. A short time later, an elaborate spoof was hatched, and a letter to Stn Cdr Waddington arrived from Group tasking the NAEW Joint Trials Unit to investigate whether indeed female aircrew could safely and effectively fly in the aircraft...the letter ended that a positive report would be most beneficial to the Air Force. Needless to say, a fairly thick file of correspondence thumped onto the desk of the "victim" with a minute tasking him to write a paper on the subject. The majority of Stn Execs, our representatives in Group, and other parts of the RAF were all in on the affair, and even signals flashed between units asking for news on the progress of the report. The victim himself initially wrote a memo to the Stn Cdr asking not to have this task because he was personally not in favour, but the file came back to him (Memo attached). He actually wrote a very good paper on the subject but highlighted some problems such as inadequate toilet provision, lack of sanitary towel disposal etc and forwarded the draft on to OC Trials Team for approval. It came back initialled by both OC Trials Team and Stn Cdr asking him to re-write it because it was not supportive enough. Re-written it duly was, only for the file to surface at a Unit beer call and the spoof revealed (and the report read to all assembled). The last I knew of the file - it had been squirrelled away at the Trials Team and then passed on to the Sentry Training Team when the Sentry arrived on the scene. I wonder if it still exists?