Originally Posted by
klingonbc
Spent over 10 years flying with a trusty Browning 9mm plus 10 rounds. On the ground it was 4 mags of 9mm (13/12/12/13) and awesome training for that role. Latter years the most impressive addition was the Heckler & Koch HK53 with 2 x 25 round mags twin clipped to the weapon. Our cockpit was too cramped for the SA80 (thank god!) and the HK came with sliding stock to make it compact. The HK53 was a slightly longer barrel 5.56mm version of the MP5 and far better than the SA80. Add each front crew's Browning and HK to the rear crew LSW and GPMG plus 400 rounds made it an impressive crew weapon load.
Several years later and another location saw Chinese made AK-47 and Makarov 9mm as issued personal weapons (and the buckshee 7.62 FN and 1000 rounds left by the predecessor) for use flying and on the ground. So yes - some aircrew do end up with some interesting kit depending on their role. Kbc