PN: Not sure whether there is a mix up I was involved with both the hydraulic bay and 51 itself from 77 -79 with Nimrod R1 and as confirmed from the 51 website extract below:
The squadron moved to Wyton in March 1963, where Nimrod R Mk 1 aircraft arrived in July 1971. These were used alongside the Canberras and Comets until January 1975, when the Comets left and when the Canberras were retired in October 1976, the squadron continued to only operate the Nimrods. The squadron continued in this role until 2011 using the Nimrods, moving to Waddington in April 1995. Under the 2011 Strategic Defence and Security Review it was decided to retire the Nimrods before their replacements were ready and crews began training on the Boeing RC-135W 'Air Seeker' in the USA and will fly as crew members on USAF aircraft until the RAF examples are delivered in 2015.
Anyway back on topic, Deployment exercise on some farm in the middle of Germany with 18 Sqn: One evening told as guard comander that we might be attacked and to make sure my guards were alert, we now had night vision goggles and I very soon got a report that there were some intruders approaching the site and how many etc, I asked the guard who reported the sighting how he can be so precise and I was invited to his hole in the ground so he could show me, how we laughed when it became apparent that there was a flaw in the new Gortex kit that the intruders were wearing as they all glowed a lovely shade of yellow.
Another farm another day guards stood at the road to the farm when any army vehicle pulled up and was duly incapacitated and prisoners held, apparently this was not supposed to be the way things had been briefed to these guys and we had not been prepared for it either, it turns out they had had a navigational error and attacked the wrong site.
BDR was fun on helicopters as the people who threw injects in were more fix wing trained and on one exercise as the BDR assessor I was thrown this tail unit from some small helicopter with a hole about an inch in diameter one area. I assessed it and told the fella it would be sorted within half an hour with a quick file and speed tape, he pointed out to me that I had failed the test as I had not drawnt up a plan to put a thick slab of alumium on with a double row of jo-bolts as per the BDR manual (fixed wing as we did not have a helicopter one at the time). When I pointed this out to him and the construction of the peice of helicopter was fag packet thin aluminium skin attached with pop rivets and if I spent all day doing the repair his way the helicopter would crach on take off from overstress caused by vibration, he left in a bit of a mood.