3 of the 4 QRA aircrew were quietly watching yet another VHS in the Wattisham Q-shed one evening in the early '80s when it was the Crows' turn to sit Southern Q; the 4th had gone to his pit and the dividing curtains were drawn to keep the noise / light from the rest area from disturbing him.
Their peace was rudely shattered as through the curtains there suddenly crashed their colleague wrestling frantically with his errant goon suit. They watched in polite surprise thinking "He's really gone bloody nuts this time!" until the flailing rubber-suited creature decided to calm down....
It was 'Thrombo' - also known as 'AWF'. He was attempting to time how long it took him to don his goon suit if scrambled in the dead of night - but without the urgency and klaxons, sounds of running groundcrew and general mayhem, the moment lacked the necessary adrenalin for success. But it did give the rest of the Q crews a good laugh!
At least we would take it in turns to stand down to the OM in pairs for dinner, taking the world's most useless piece of comms kit, the 2-handed walkie-talkie 'Storno' radio and the station's most clapped-out L.androver. There was a special phone in the OM which was unlisted and was supposed to be used only to call us back to the Q-shed if the RS had been increased. One night we were happily scoffing when it rang - I* charged out to coax the L.androver into life whilst my colleague answered the phone.....
False alarm - it seems one of the mess stewards had given the number of the phone to all his 'dial-a-mate' chums for their private evening calls!
*Rule No.1 - Never let the navigator drive!
Last edited by BEagle; 5th Dec 2013 at 22:28.