November4
Thought that rang a bell so just dug my log book out of the loft.
The trip was originally a westabout taking Fincastle crews from Kinloss to Adelaide. FE was ex Kipper fleet. We then, as you say, headed to HKG for trips to Seoul and Kathmandu for the Ghurka roulement. We used Seoul as Osan was having the runway done and thereby hangs a tale.
Myself and the other GE's (we'd picked up slip crews) stayed for the off/on load and during the evening our passports and papers were taken and examined several times by various officials. Next morning on departure I was deficient one of the many pieces of paper we were given on arrival. I was taken away by a very large - no arguements - Korean official. After an eternity locked in a very small room, a British Army WO with the UN came and asked for my story. He said we had to make our apologies and led me to another office with aforementione heavyweight official. We apologised profusely but were getting nowhere until he asked how much the fine was. The WO then opened his attache case, which I swear had more dollars than any 10 Sqn kitty, and paid a considerable sum. I was then allowed back through the terminal and onto the aircraft still wondering if that had just happened.
I didn't get back to Brize on 109 though, the icing on the cake was being offloaded at Bahrain to assist another GE with what turned out to be a flap assymetry problem. While we waited for a box to come out from UK I didn't think it prudent to mention that if his crew hadn't been so keen to take 109 back, and we'd had a proper handover, we could have taken the box out of my tech pack instead of watching it disappear into the sunset. Happy days.
I've got a couple of photos of 109 at KTM on that trip and will try and upload them.