Yes, it was an MS10, now I come to think of it. Prank organised by JJ. The window was thrown open, in came the dinghy. A loud hissing noise and there was the wokka mates' answer to the fag-charioteers tatty old mat....
Make personal attacks all you like (not permitted by the rules of PPRuNe, you might note), I have never made any secret of the fact that after I did a 'pre-Vulcan Buccaneer' course, then flew the tin triangle, I crossed back over to the FJ world,but was only Op on the F4 for about 18 months before returning to multis on the VC10K.
I was discussing the Goose, not my personal time in the RAF. But sticks and stones....
Anyway, back to the Goose. During my last stint at MPA, we had to have a crack down on illegal drinking dens after a fire in one of them. At the weekly meeting of FIAW, it was stated that the problem was getting out of hand. Yet the very next night (or maybe a couple later) the OM wing was evacuated in the freezing cold because of smoke seen billowing out of the Goose as they partied until oh-dark-hundred on a Friday night - despite the fact that Saturday is supposed to be a working day at MPA. The Wg Cdr was not too pleased, to say the least, and declared that the Goose would be shut if things didn't settle down.
Then it was discoverd that the smoke alarm had been 'modified'; the smoke the police patrol had seen was only fag smoke, but could have been something more deadly. Anyone who has been to MPA should know that fire is one of the biggest threats to the place, particularly in the Death Star wings.
After another evacuation a couple of weeks later, I asked why on earth the Goose was tolerated, yet we were cracking down on anyone else who ran such a 'lounge'.... One rule for the officer aircrew and one for the rest? There was no real answer to that.
It was also necessary to close the short RW as an MT route after FOD patrols found bits of a 'recreational' MT vehicle on the RW - someone hadn't done the FOD check (it was dark - ATC won't notice...the girls are thirsty...) and had then driven to the 'Queen Vic'.... The squeals of complaint about the inconvenience such a Flight Safety measure brought to those invited to the Vic were many and loud. It seems that many people seemed to advocate behaviour which would never be tolerated on a UK base - and life at MPA was far from being particularly hard. Although it was, and probably still is, heavily fuelled by alcohol. It's been that way since MPA first opened.
I understand that Mrs Doubtfire closed most of the ISO-container drinking dens?
I'm sure that 1435 had a reason to have their own mess within a mess, but it did seem surprising that it was tolerated. And as for pole-dancing in an Officers' Mess by people-formerly-known-as-WRAFs in front of drunken aircrew - I'm sure The Sun would have loved that one.