Morning all - todays offering. I must post with a caveat-most of the pics I put up are mine, but some are not-a bunch of us pooled our pictures,especially during the Gulf War and memory has dimmed in some cases. I was talking to Stretchwell last night and it turns out that a picture I have always thought of as his, in fact wasn't. Bottom Line-If I post someone else's pic from the good old days, I'm not stealing credit and I hope they will forgive me
First up - Ethiopia food dropping
Same drop -different DZ-flew up in a Polish Mi8 to man the DZ radio-slightly perturbed by the 2 pilots quaffing vodka all day-after the days work, we got airborne and did a 'DZ Inspection' during which we equalled the world low flying record-luckily the soft tyres just bounced us gently back into the air and we sheepishly flew back to Addis-in fact they let me fly it back most of the way ! At the time, quite a feat considering this was still 'Cold War' days....
An interesting Det to Gib with a tanker and some Tooms - Just after the Aardvarks from Heyford rearranged Ghaddaffi's tents. There was a perceived threat against Gib so we formed the Air-defence for a while. Twas a standard ' bring a bottle ' war until we got a shout and blasted off to meet a pair of Migs (Mirages ?) racing towards the Rock. There ensued a surreal 20 mins of listening to the Tooms engaging and the exchange with C&C trying to decide whether to splash them or not. All ended harmlessly and back to the Mess for sundowners
Saying Hi to the lovely Pole-Evans family at Saunders Island.
This was taken about the time BA and PO & crew had their nightmare arrival into ASI in the great storm. Looks so benign in this photo. Be nice if either of those fine aviators could tell their story here to those that haven't heard it. It is one of the top Herc stories.
