When training new crews on the Vickers FunBus, we would land at many different US bases. It seemed that, no matter where you went, the number of aircraft lined up would be more than the entire RAF...
Little Rock Arkansas - I think I stopped counting at 80 when trying to count the number of C-130s on the ramp. Same at Dover for C-5s and as for Oceana NAS and its naval fast jets....
And it was as though they were getting hold of our itinerary, then sending fleets of F-16s to any USAF fighter base at which we landed! I felt a bit like Victor Bolenko (the MiG 25 defector) did when he went to the US; he thought that the shopping malls he was shown were being specially stocked up to fool him into thinking that everywhere in the US was that wealthy. So eventually his handlers had to say "OK, we'll go for a drive. You tell us where. When you say 'Stop - I want to go into that shop', we'll do just that." So they did - and only then did he realise how the folk in the Soviet Union had been lied to.
A few years ago, every time I landed at Frankfurt I used to count the C-17s sitting on the ground and divide by the number leased (the RAF couldn't afford to buy them) for 99 Sqn. I think my record was around 6 or 7. Just
one aircraft type
sitting on the ground at
one overseas deployed air base......
Go to Randloph and count the number of USAF trainer aircraft. T-1 Jayhawks, T-6 Texan IIs, T-38s and T-43s. Probably still some T-37 Tweets as well. Then compare that with the utter clusterf*ck of the ridiculous UK MFTS nonsense.
Years and years of underspend and cutback must soon come home to roost. But the guilty will have retired with their stars and knighthoods by then....
