I was involved with a case at Gut in '78 on 3. There had been a spate of wrongly set patch switches, ie if the jock was firing SNEBS, when he pressed the tit, instead of the rockets firing, the whole SNEB pod dropped off. SIB were involved in that and I got the old 'good guy, bad guy' interview. I was the last guy in the cockpit being Flight Systems as I ran up the INAS before the Jock strapped in so I was apparently prime suspect number one. I didn't even know where the patch switches were not being an armourer and they being hidden underneath the instrument panel. The switches that is, not the armourers. The questions they asked were ludicrous as in 'What position were the aircraft in on Delta dispersal last Monday?' I wouldn't have remembered what position they were in five minutes before never mind last Monday. Anyway I wasn't interviewed again so I suppose they thought I was too dumb to have done it.
But what surprised me was the thought that it was sabotage (I never got to find out one way or the other), I thought that sort of thing only happened in Len Deighton novels. But then I suppose it was the height of the cold war etc etc. It was quite exciting really.
Ah, talking of the SIB, I also had the misfortune to do a Firestreak/Red Top course, all four months of it, at RAF Newton which at that time was plod central training school. They trained the SIB there too and I was sat in the airman's mess one day, having reached the heady ranks of corporal when two guys in M+S suits came to join me at my table. 'We're proper substantive corporals' they said, 'We thought we ought to sit together'. OK I thought, I'm off for a paper and a sit down in the foyer but do join in.
SIB number one pipes up with 'You must be on the RTFM guidance course, so what's the range of the missile then?'
My reply was similar but more robust than 'Chaps, if you think I'm falling for so obvious a ploy on your part then you are I'm afraid sadly mistaken but please do take this opportunity to expedite yourself from my company.'
Honestly, they were scarily bad.
Last edited by thing; 31st Jul 2010 at 22:42.