I'll try and give you a comprehensive reply Smuj.........
I was on STS from '80 - '82. As Dougie has said, we were in a great building close to the Hilmarton gate.
The unit consisted of; 3 pilots (including the boss), 2 Navs, 1 Air Eng, 3 Loadies, 2 PJIs and a small admin staff.
Our main job was to run Tactical Support (TS) Courses for the crews of 47 & 70 Sqns. The course consisted of teaching low-level flying and air drop techniques. It was quite an intense course, particularly for the Loadies, but it was great fun.
The course ended with a 3 day Scottac to, either, Kinloss or Lossie (very occasionally MAC).
We would take a Land Rover on the aircraft and, on the final dropping day, I would drive off into the wilds of the Moray grouse moors. There I would lay out a basic 3-panel DZ and wait for my lunch to be delivered.
I must have spent hundreds of hours at low-level and enjoyed nearly all of it. And, no, I'm not going to tell you about the bit I didn't enjoy!
As well as the course, there had to be periodic checks carried out on all crew members, except the Air Eng - who only had to complete the course. This is the reason I was the only Eng on the staff.
We did the occasional route trip, to keep in practice, and normally picked up a 5 or 6 day trip to somewhere nice. Sometimes, I was unable to fit that in - so I would give my place away to the guys in the sim.......who didn't get out much
We, also, ran ad-hoc courses for 47 SF and carried out trials on the 1st generation NVGs.
SKE (Station Keeping Equipment) was another challenge. SKE was a piece of kit that allowed up to 4 aircraft to fly at low level in formation.
As an added bonus, I was the standby Eng for JATE and got the opportunity to fly with them now and again. I vividly remember doing 4 or 5 ULLA trips - very exhilarating.
Then came Op Corporate...........
As the fleet moved south of Ascension, it quickly became obvious that the range/payload equation was going to be a big problem.
The first solution was to fit 4 Andover long range tanks, in pairs, in the freight bay. A metal box containing 2 fuel boost pumps was included and suitable plumbing was fitted to allow fuel from the tanks to get to the x-feed manifold. As you can imagine, this didn't leave much room for payload and it was obvious this could only be a temporary solution.
We devised a one-day course to qualify crews on this fit.
Next came the brilliant idea of fitting a probe for Air-to-Air Refuelling. After the first probe was fitted, the aircraft went to Boscombe for trials and I believe the first 2 crews (Capts Harry B and Max R) were trained there.
Further a/c were fitted with probes and the training was given to STS.
To give you an idea of how basic (and clever) this mod was, initially the AAR was controlled from down the back. The a/c refuelling panel (aft of the stbd wheel well) was simply turned around to face inboard (yes I know there were pressure hull issues - I'm trying to keep it simple).
This was less than ideal so, very soon, another refuelling panel was fitted at the Air Eng's station.
As you can imagine, the training schedule was hectic because of the need to get as many crews trained as possible. One of the problems was getting tankers. The Victors were heavily committed down South, so we had to use Vulcan tankers also. Plugging in behind a Vulcan was a wonderful sight.
Not long afterwards, someone came up with the idea of fitting a Hose Drum Unit (HDU) to the a/c with the long range tanks. The C130 Tanker was born.
Initially, we did that training as well but it was obvious, with the re-introduction of the TS courses, that we were short staffed. The tanker training became a separate entity.
I can honestly say that my time on STS was one of the best jobs I've had in aviation - Service or civilian.
Now, I know you are going to say 'where are the pictures?' Unfortunately, in '92 I went through a 'major domestic upheaval' and they were lost.
If you are still awake Smuj, I've done my best to be accurate but this all happened a long time ago, and I left the fleet in '88.