Thread Drift Warning
During the early 70s, the fighting 72nd's SD crew were off somewhere secret and we received a signal requesting a replacement tail rotor. A French Transall(sp?) had been arranged to collect the item. The French aircraft duly arrived and parked at the end of the dispersal. One of us went out to invite the crew into our crewroom for coffee. They declined, waving a half-full bottle of something red out of their DV panel.
Later in life, flying the North Sea out of Aberdeen, we flew a visiting delegation from the French embassy to a French drilling rig some 100 miles offshore. The plan was to wait for the delegation to have a tour of the facility, then have lunch with the party, before flying the passengers back to Aberdeen. The Offshore Installation Manager was surprised that we declined his pre-lunch offer of a whisky.
In the early 80s, visiting the Cranfield Air Show, which was like a mini-Farnborough for GA and helicopters, to experience an afternoon flight in an Agusta 109 with a view to considering it as a single-pilot IFR aircraft, I had lunch with the Company test crews and sales people. The Chief Test Pilot and one of his tps was there, and the CTP drank only water with the meal. I assumed he would command the demo flight. His tp took in a fair amount of chianti. After the meal, the tp, not the CTP, took my arm and said, "Let's go fly."
Before all that, in early 1960s, there is no truth in the rumour that three UAS QFIs were seen at Inniskillen Airfield during an Air Day supping from bottles of dark Irish liquid before flying home.