Nugget90
Like you I hated this business of carrying both sets of uniforms and on the Herc of course we had to wear flying suits. I can recall in January '72 there was a panic on - all the standby crews were called out and instructed to carry blue and KD. A VC10 came from Brize to pick the 60 of us up and then took us to Santa Maria in the Azores. The idiots on high knew where we were going and could easily have said no blues needed as we were bound ultimately for Belize.
In my time ( 67 - 73 ), the only time Herc' crews reported 3 hours before departure was going across the North Atlantic as we didn't know what the track would be. For anywhere else, including Bahrain, it was an hour and a half. Also of course we had standard nav' logs drawn up for the 'trunk routes'.
Sorry for the thread drift folks!