I've been off the air for a few days.
Brakedwell:
Many thanks JJ for your video. I was Orderly Officer at Benson on Christmas Eve when it started to snow and the airfield was still shut two months later due to some spectacularly stupid decisions made at high level.
Stackedup:
I'm afraid you have lost me. We had XP444 on 267 Squadron and I first flew it on 17 December 1962 with Wg Cdr Alec Steedman who was O.C. 267 Sqn.
ICM:
Ah!!!!!! The dreaded Bahrain Overflight!!!!!!
Or, what was more commonly known as the "Marie Celeste".
We used to get airborne from Khormaksar, not long before sunset, and set off down the ADR (Advisory Route for the youngsters among you) for about 100 miles to position LAVA and then set off in a north-easterly direction across the mountains and the Wadi Hadraumat and so into the Rub al Khali (The Empty Quarter) for about four hours eventually emerging with the aid of a single Doppler and a trusty navigator somewhere round about Tarif heading for Doha for Bahrain. Inshallah.
We then did a one and a half hour turnaround and repeated the exercise southbound. The sun used to come up around LAVA if all had gone well and the new day was celebrated in Neddy's Bar.
I have looked in my logbook and I see it was XP411 (now at Cosford) and I have Big Andy as the nav northbound and you as the nav southbound so I guess it was a route check for you guys.
I don't actually remember the "prop overspeed" scenario, but the Trapper used to ask us to have a practice emergency.
The funniest one that I ever got involved in was with 53 Sqn on the Belfast.