It is not up to the crew to decide their accommodation requirements - AKR Ops have always known the rules and have, to my mind, always applied them reasonably well.
Sometimes, for a quickie night stop, it was far more convenient to stya on base and do the kebab thing in the evening. Whilst at other times, for example trying to sleep before a night departure to land in some desert $hithole in the dark, it was much better to stay in a quiet hotel than have to tolerate 9 little red Hawks making pretty patterns with coloured smoke waking you up every few minutes.....
A 1Gp whingeogram came around the AT fleet in 2002 - it seemed that some AT ar$e from a base not in Oxfordshire had been leaning on AKR Ops demanding that his crew were all co-located off-base 'for operational reasons'. Which was bolleaux. Just let the AKR Ops guys get on with their jobs and accept what you're given.
Incidentally, at Lajes, 10% Carlos always tried to give the receiver crews the best hotel. Who got the worst? Well, after their teenage wireless operators tried to thieve something from the hotel they'd been booked into, a certain fleet rarely found itself staying in the better hotels......
Dan - the bedspreads were better than the curtains if the OM couldn't find any towels. You never knew
who had been wiping
what on the curtains before....
