Originally Posted by
ricardian
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.
In 1972 Bomber Ops at Akrotiri did away with the chinagraph. Instead each captains name was letrasetted and covered with Perspex. Two magnets were attached and the whole could be stuck on the metal tote boards. I think they had similar ones for aircraft etc and dinky magnetic numbers in reds and blacks.
The first day it was put in to use happened to coincide with a no-notice taceval. First person to enter the ops room let the door slam. All the magnets fell off the wall.
At least chinagraph is shock proof. Chalk would have been better as heat proof too,