Brian 48 Nav,
That's a nice, accurate, account of the introduction to service. And nice to see that Colerne gets a mention, particularly as it ties in to AA62 recollecting the link with 48 Squadron. I'm sure that Marshalls of Cambridge should also take some credit for their work and support of the Aircraft in service. There was certainly a large element of MCE interwoven with the Base 2 and 3 teams at Colerne in my time there 71-73.
Ksimboy,
Having just returned from an enjoyable evening with the said TT, I had no intimation that it was a Scottac. Who knows, I'm sure we have all done some "funny" jobs during our time on the K. I'm sure that someone had a grasp of the "big picture". I relate the following event. I'm employed as a GE, and my best mate (the boss GE) decided that I am to be rewarded for my hard work with a couple of days camping at Keevil, doing an Army infil exercise. The troops were a mix of Para and Ghurka, and myself and the lineys were not too impressed with the two hour low level ride from Lyneham to Keevil. Sarcasm at its extreme, we could have driven there. The muppets did drive there, and when we eventually arrived, they had a tent, and Landrover set up for our, and their use. The Landrover was "Muppet only" ! Surrounded by white lashing tape, we were officially not part of the wargames being played beyond. Our job was to see in and out the resupply aircraft. A late call to see in an aircraft that was on finals elicited a maximum effort from our Muppet brethren, who duly roared off in their 4WD jobby. In the process of racing directly, across the grass, to the parking area, they didn't realise that they had run over the legs of a Ghurka soldier, disguised as a patch of grass. He was casevaced on the aircraft they were racing to attend, and had a full recovery in another one of our RAF treasures, RAF Wroughton Hospital. Suffice to say that the Army were not impressed, in fact, none of us were impressed, but the incident did perhaps signal the end of realistic exercise conditions. After that, any exercise I was involved in certainly involved an element of H & S. As an aside, whilst doing what old GEs do (reminiscing) this evening, your name was mentioned at least twice by TT, interesting that you should post whilst I was out
Smudge
