On the 'ead, son!

[stickmonkeytamer]

http://news.aol.co.uk/soldiers-letting-off-steam-with-jet/article/20061012052909990001

Glad to see that someone is finally understanding that we go to Afghanistan to "let off steam"... It's just like a holiday camp really! It even has a Saturday market...

SMT

[SamCaine]

Looking at the votes 76% say it's acceptable. Thanks be for the good British public :suspect: .

[Melchett01]

So I guess the pictures of that fat knacker Prescott playing croquet was just him and his staff letting off steam then?

But I guess there are 2 sides to every story - I just wonder when the real one about this picture will finally come out?

[QFIhawkman]

But I guess there are 2 sides to every story - I just wonder when the real one about this picture will finally come out?

The real one? I thought it was pretty well known already. Jets in dangerous places take off. They stay low as long as possible. They build airspeed. Once going nice and fast then they "heave ho" and point skyward at impressive angle.

Chap on ground has a giggle by standing at the end of the runway and getting his mate to film him playing chicken.

Hardly news is it? It's done every day at every risky airfield going. I've seen troops of many nationalities doing it on a daily basis at one particular airfield in the mountains.

So, the real story Melchett. There you have it. Nothing "cooked up" with the pilot. Nothing newsworthy either. I think what we see there however is a product of the computer age and "youtube" type sites. It's always happened, I guess that in the past right up until very recently, it's just one of those things that the public never saw.

Isn't new media just fantastic?

[Melchett01]

QFIHawkman

Apologies - obviously poorly / incompletely phrased. I realise that the said ac are just taking off, afterall, the only other option is turn left out of the main gate at KAF, up the road a bit and onto Highway 1 before reaching tgt area.

What I was alluding to is the media hype about Harrier drivers flying dangerously, squaddies seeing who has biggest balls etc. Nowhere in the media reporting of this video have I seen anyone actually say that the ac was just getting off the deck and that it was taken at the end of the runway. The media and various media lovies in MOD seemed to all jump to the immediate conclusion that the crews were doing something dangerous and wrong without checking facts, but we never heard that - after all it's much more fashionable to have a go at the RAF in the press these days.