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Old 6th Nov 2016, 09:01
  #56 (permalink)  
MPN11
 
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Often in Jersey, but mainly in the past.
Age: 79
Posts: 7,812
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You just beat me to it, Fareastdriver

Allow me to tell a tale of weapon loading at a major airbase south of Lincoln. It was one of those no-notice aircraft generation exercises, and involved the old familiar bomb convoys making their way to the various dispersals with their assorted escort vehicles. You may recall that once the convoy was moving, nothing must impede its progress. Unfortunately, on this particular morning there was dense fog. I really do mean dense - visibility was effectively 0>10 yards. ATC Local thus found itself in the 'interesting' role of providing a full IFR service to the convoys, using Storno on the Police channel. Non-standard phraseology was involved, such as "Have you passed the PAR building yet?", as we tried to keep the convoys moving without conflictions.

At one point the Stn Cdr called on our private Ops/ATC Exercise field telephone asking why the loading was taking so long. SATCO thought of inviting the Stn Cdr to look out of the window, but realised that Ops didn't have one ... so explained, as gently as possible, the circumstances under which everyone was operating. The generation exercise inevitably took much longer than usual, although things improved when the fog cleared ... a bit.

Last edited by MPN11; 6th Nov 2016 at 09:12.
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