Deci, 1976 and 1977:
First arrival, battle four, 450kts, 250 ft................first mistake, but at least it set the scene for the rest of the detachment.
"Red formation taxi"
"We don't have a Red section booked"
"Do you have one for Blue formation"
"Afirmative"
"OK, Blue section Taxi...."
"Clear hot rockets"
"BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrt"
"You were cleared for rockets, not strafe!"
"They were little rockets!"
"You maka da switches safa, an' you go 'ome. For you, the range she-isa clos-ed".
Pig and Tape. 0200. FLight Commander (ex fairground pugalist) holding court:
"........so guys, next time you're blo!!cked, just imagine the guy doing it is dressed in only his underpants and it won't seem quite so bad. In fact you'll spend so much concentration trying to stop laughing, you'll not hear the bo!!ocking"
30 mins later, other FLight Commander appears in underpants and proceeds to bo!!ock us for making too much noise. He couldn't sleep and he was on first wave the following morning.......you can imagine the result.
Chaos corner in Cagliari
Is Molas Golf course - how many balls did you loose there?
Arrival in Feb 76 to find that a Phantom Nav on a previous detachment had filled the tumble drier with water thinking it was a washing machine that hadn't yet been connected......... Yes he did turn it on, and no, it didn't work!
I had some fun there for sure, but I often wonder whether the training could have been better and cheaper if carried out at the home ranges.........
A