Last of my tale of Red Flag detachment. Towards the end we had an incident whereby a Tornado lost one of the pods. The pod contained radioactive material so the USAF demanded the RAF clean it up. So a cleanup team was sent out from UK along with the board members of a SI. My replacement came out so I handed over my imprest, car, hotel room and log and prepared to return home.
The VC10 was full (all those extra bods) so my wife went home civvy with two a/c changes. This concerned me but as usual she coped admirably.
So here we all are on the 10 ready to go but we did not. An engine snag put us AOG. Big problem for my successor to find hotel rooms for us all. I tried to look for a Herc trip home but nothing was due for a few days to start the recovery.
I ended up in Caesars Palace, in a room with the heart shaped bed, mirrored ceiling and sunken bath ! Three days later the 10 was fixed and home I came.
It had been interesting but hard work especially as the Group Captain i/c seemed to think that non AT problems were well within my province. However he did send a nice letter to the Squadron.
All change next time.