I heard it for the first time in February this year from a Second Officer. I utilised every CRM skill I possess (not many) to tell him that if he said it again, I'd be forced to beat it out of him. After picking himself up from the jocularity of me actually considering trying to flog him- he was a big lad- he worked out that I was at least serious about the 'the' at the start of the call sign!
Beyond that, as I've said on previous threads, the only other time I've heard it was when Guppy (I think it was you mate!) used it to refer to us as 'The echo alpha quebec' when we signed in on frequency just after 'the speedbird 10' had announced it's arrival!
Shows you how long ago it was that we were still using rego's and we still had 762s!
