Some of us were airborne on night 1 Dougie
We were skulking about in the North West corner on goggles positioning lots of blokes with long hair to go and cause trouble. Having dropped off one lot, we were heading south east to go and get another crowd when we too became aware of the aluminium overcast heading sausage-side. About the same time all the radio boxes were alive with code words for ‘ the balloons gorn up, all non- players clear orft ‘. Unfortunately, clearing off or landing wasn’t an option as we were in the middle of quite an important operation.
After trying to talk in code to AWACs about who we were and what we wanted to do for what seemed like ages, I asked him in my best anglo-american plain speak about our predicament. To my amazement he came straight back and cleared us to a level he said was the least busy, wished us luck and said keep a good look-out…..