"Last night I dreamed I went down to the Crown..."
Aah,
I often wonder if the surf & turf can still be as good, thanks for reassuring me; I keep telling her indoors we're going...
The people at 'The Frook' were the most professional & decent crowd I have ever worked with, if Kenny & co' from Photographic, Taff' from Range Control, any read this, Thanks.
The last I heard, and believe this still true but will check, is that the range is still open as in aircraft can come in and do their bit, but aircraft cannot land & base there.
So, most people gone, presumably Range Control & maybe Tower still manned.
I expect you all know the place was supposedly based on Peenemunde in layout, and I seem to remember the steel cupolas of the Kine-Theodolite cameras had embossed swastikas, painted over !
I've just remembered another one - the 'Bridies' ( Scottish pasties ) in the decidedly non-luxury canteen. The opposite experience to the Surf & Turf...
One of many events we had there was a then new GR5 doing rocket attacks on the beach target; as was customary there, he HAD to do a beat -up afterwards.
Ran straight at the Tower at below top window height, fast, banking around at the last possible moment.
When he landed we found he'd been pointing at the tower with a hung-up rocket !!!
The yellow & green Buccaneers for chase / photo - one day the station boss ( A.A ? ) agreed to a photo sortie of one, from the back of the Andover.
By a resident photographer I might add - ( I never dared take a hand camera on site, the security was quite something ) they were red hot with all sorts of complicated & antiquated kit, but probably didn't do a lot of air-air work or indeed have the boss's ear, so no briefing or input, everyone just did it...
When the prints rolled out, all the upper surfaces of the Bucc' were covered in white spots - dust on the print ?
No, a contribution from the Jackdaws who were quite entertaining, roosting in the hangars.
Whever I hear or see one now I smile & think of W.F.
I don't think the boss was very chuffed though.
On another occasion, it was as usual blowing a whoolie, but just to go through the motions I and Test Pilot of the day Bernie Scott walked over to the tower to get the weather, him for flying and me for setting up onboard cameras.
As we went in, Bernie looked around craftily, then gave the needle arm on the anemometer trace a mighty flick.
When I raised an eyebrow at him, he whispered " I always do that here, I'm trying to get the highest recorded gust in the UK ! "
Up hill from the Crown is The FernHill Hotel, also very good but not as friendly as the Crown, a little more genteel.
Excuse me going on but I think you'll like this one, and it refers to we visitors, not the range staff.
One weekend, I found myself with just a new Flight Test Engineer at the Crown - he'd been really thrown in at the deep end, running a trial only a few weeks after joining - stupid idea.
I tried to show him what ropes I could, and in the evening made friends with the locals - easy to do when on expenses !
The next weekend he was there on his own, and slightly nervously made his way to the locals bar of the Crown.
No worries, they all remembered him as he hung anothe round on his tab.
He thought " this is great, I've only been here twice and I'm in with the locals ! "
Then he was introduced to someone else - " This here's Brian, he's one o' they range w***ers " !
Last edited by Double Zero; 10th Mar 2009 at 23:58.