Hi Wiggy - yes, I was very possibly having dinner with you when the crash alarm went off! Some chap at the end of the table kicked his chair over and rushed straight to the phone, then vanished into the night.
Someone (was it the SMO) certainly Cat5'd a service car on the way to the crash site - I'd heard he decided to aim at the fire and go in a straight line, without worrying about ditches etc....
That quaint old Storno and Rover thing I do indeed recall! Enter the OM by the fire door, leave Storno by the phone with the Rover key ring over the antenna. If phone goes, check on Storno whilst mate gets Land Rover started.... Phone rang once when I was on Q - some lad at Valley had got the wrong 'dial-a-mate' number for his oppo!
And we always tried to thrash the Rover up to 'Sqn mph' on the back road to the Q-shed. 56, of course!!
What ba$tard useless things Stonos were. Who but the RAF could accept a 2-handed 'walkie talkie'? But with a bit of anaprop, when the MUF was right
you could pick up all sorts of strange conversations due to the miracles of Megahertz!
Re. the Hawk with backseat pole incident - of course there is only the one canopy on a Hawk, so I should have said
....when we saw the damage the rear seater's ejection had caused due to the canopy perspex...
Didn't pull the handle? Since when did anyone listen to a Fighter Confuser's story.....
I once took off from Chiv in a Hawk and noticed a louder than normal noise, plus no canopy seal inflation. My fault - I'd been held waiting for the whooshy new bomber (Tornado GR1) on the approach, so opened the lid to cool down. But it didn't shut properly - and took a 2-handed heave to close when airborne. I never told anyone - due to the certain knowledge that the squirearchy would have hung me out to dry if I'd done a quick circuit to land at heavy weight in order to shut it properly!