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Old 28th Oct 2012, 11:59
  #299 (permalink)  
BEagle
 
Join Date: May 1999
Location: Quite near 'An aerodrome somewhere in England'
Posts: 26,850
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One of the best names I saw at an air display, where many wore spoof name badges, was an RAF pilot with a name badge annotated "Richard Head". Very good, very subtle, I thought. Unfortunately for him, as I found out later, that was his real name.
He was a 35 Sqn captain in the late '70s and later became a well-known helicopter instructor. An excellent chap as many will undoubtedly confirm!

A couple of years ago, he came to the Wellesbourne Mountford Wings and Wheels day in some black and yellow peril. Later in the day, he made his apologies as he had to get back to whence he came before it closed. "Are you off to crank up and leg it then, Rick?", I asked him. "No - one has a competent NCO for that sort of thing", he replied with a grin, before turning to his pongo NCO student and directing "Boy - go and warm up the old bus, will you - I'll be with you presently!". But in his inimitably jocular manner, of course!

Noting some of the less gentlemanly comments in this thread, I can only think how lucky I was that all the female aircrew on the squadrons to which I belonged were very nice people who were good at their jobs. Even if they hadn't starred during training, they always strove to improve - something which I'd noticed as a UAS QFI. If you said to one of the male students "That was an average trip", he'd merely think that it was good enough and would then spend the night in the pub. Say the same thing to one of the female students and they'd work at it to do better next time - so were generally a pleasure to instruct. Plus they washed their flying suits more often!
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