Originally Posted by
SATCOS WHIPPING BOY
A thoroughly enjoyable episode.
Only question it raises for me is why we subject the troops to coach travel to Brize.
Having been subjected to the BZN happy bus to or from LOS on a number of occasions, the following excuses came up....
The taxiways were not wide enough/strong enough..... (though a week after that excuse they managed to bring a Voyager in with the PM and a dozen or so VVIPs)
Then the taxiways were uprated and widened .... then the excuse was crew duty times
There was scuttlebutt that the AirTanker contract had some financial penalties for not RTB if it were possible.
IMHO I always got the vibe that the real reason was that if Voyager had to overnight at LOS the crew would have to stay in their respective messes rather than at home if they were at BZN or in a nice hotel on rates if they were elsewhere. (But I might be cynical)
However I do recall a time when Voyager did fly to LOS to collect a Sqn to go on a Red Flag deployment - but then flew back to Brize to collect the other "hangers on." It always seemed a bit wasteful that after hanging about in the Brize "departure lounge" for 4 hours we then flew back over Scotland on the way to the USA.