sitigeltfel,
That RN Wessex SOAP story reminds me of a mate and former colleague at my old helicopter company who was in the FAA as a mechanic on the Sea King and got roped into being a batman for an incoming flight. He hadnt been trained as a handler.
Anyhow after a brieef brief, and matey struggled but got the hand signals right, once the wheels had touched he kept signalling the aircraft commander to power down. But the A/C was mimicking a drinking motion with his hand as in drinking a cup of tea. Another few minutes passed and rotors still spinning and matey kept insisting he powers down.
So the visual dialogue contineued till matey managed to call over one of his colleagues to come over and asked him to kindly make a cup of tea for the a/c. Soon enough a boiling cup of hot tea was brought to the aircraft and handed over to the the pilot.
Thereafter drink was consumed, and laughter and smiles from the crew, then handed back to said sailor ran back to matey and said "The pilot says thanks for an excellent cup of tea but what he wanted was his helo to be refuelled". Then it dawned on matey that the a/c what the hand movements meant
Anyhow back to this topic, when I was in the CCF and in the RAF section, went on easter camp 1991 to Church Fenton and amongst other schools CCF such as Shipwreck school and another school from London. Anyhow throughout the camp, especially to section visits we were constantly reminded 'we don't want any paperwork' as in try not to get injured or killed especially from the visit to the fire station. The SAC crewmember said if theres an emergency out on the runway they crank up the engines and move on out regardless of who or whats in the way and then fill in the paperwork afterwards
Then the night exercise near the runway where cadets versus cadets in stop and search and apprehend under the direction of an RAFP Corporal but we kinda got out of hand physically and got threatened to be arrested and locked up in the guardroom for the night
Also when we were visiting the tower, an F.3 crew decided to give us a nice display as in a couple of circuits, with landing gear down and then not even touching the runway and then gear up a few times around the tower then finally, after the third or fourth pass, they accelerated away at full afterburner
Though the week was fun we were all ushered off base for an orienteering exercise around the countryside as on a sad day was the funeral of a Tornado pilot who had been shot down during Desert Storm, and it was held in Tadcaster as his family was from there. His squadron had a flypast of GR.1 during the late morning, early afternoon.
One lucky cadet won a competition to go up in the new Tucano as the rest of us ended up going up on AEF Chippie
