Fabulous
Just copied most of this from my earlier response to BingoBob's first post under "Aviation History and Nostalgia". This is from an earlier, and probably much less exciting/interesting, era of FAB, than recent posts.
I was on a day fighter Meteor squadron, at Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire, '51/'53 ish.
I do remember once getting airborne rapidly from the ORP, (not with the trolley acc still attached, although I did see one dragged a few yards before the lead pulled out) but with the fire warning light covers which I had been carefully unscrewing to relieve the tedium hastily stuffed into a pocket. I hadn't got as far as fiddling with the bulbs though. "Fab" for us day fighters was strictly dawn to dusk only, and I think we were in the habit of getting airborne for the dusk fab - can't remember about the dawn period - probably not because the aircraft would just stay on the ORP for the next shift. I guess an hour, maybe more, would have been about tops at immediate cockpit readiness - the ejector seats weren't built for comfort.
Hey, we were still flying those early jets in leather helmets and big old-fashioned Mae Wests. We did loll about in really old mess furniture outside tents on the airfield grass near the ORP in the summer on exercise standby, but maybe not the norm for Fab, which I think was often managed back in the crew room at a lower state of readiness, but memory is struggling a bit here.
There must be some more octogenarians out there to contribute.
Happy days ....