The Ops Room at Akrotiri in the mid 1960s ran on chinagraph pencils, rectangular pieces of perspex, a very large board and some extremely clever WRAF ops clerks.
Still did in 1988. Used to take half an hour or more to get a take-off time out of them up at Golf Dispersal. Mucked up planning somewhat. Then someone did a hold-it-low-and-rotate-vertical-at-the-end-of-the-runway take-off. The Police post (who were under it) immediately complained. Then complained again when the wingman did it. The Boss promptly ordered all takeoffs to be wacky, and we used Plod's punctilious, immediate complaints to log the T/O times. For 5 weeks.
