Tall Stories

[Cliff O'Malley]

Anyone have any stories about encounters with those sterling people from the met office?

[Descend to What Height?!?]

Cliff,
No, but we have endless stories of the RAF's finest encounters when they met and worked with the MET(Wo)Men on Snoopy! :D :D

Endless days chasing that elusive "parcell of air" that never quite seemed to be where the forecast said it should!

Or the "you want to go where to do what?!?!?" from a very bewildered Navigator, who after the initial shock, usually had a 100% water tight workable ops plan within 24 hours.

From our end, nothing but the highest professional respect from the RAF air and ground crews we have had the pleasure of flying with for the past 59 years. :)

[Skycop]

At RAF Linton-on-Ouse in 1977 the senior Metman was dined out, I recall his first name was Gerald.

As usual, the PMC droned on about how Gerald had been on the station since..., sterling service..., many years, blah blah, etc.

He had been also given the following true anecdote about the departee:

One senior officer had put his head over Gerald's MQ garden fence one Sunday morning to complain about the extremely smokey and smelly bonfire he had lit in his garden.

Gerald replied: "Oh sorry, sir - I HAD NO IDEA WHICH WAY THE WIND WAS BLOWING!"

:rolleyes:

[BEagle]

Back at Cranwell in the 70s, 'Griff the Met' arrived slightly late at our groundschool met lecture. The reason being that Plod had decided to instigate Bikini Sky-Blue Pink or whatever and everyone was being delayed on the only road there was.

"Sorry I'm late, chaps. By the way, have you seen that queue?"

One mate peers out of the window at the clag settled on Lincolnshire and replies "Actually, Griff, looks more like low stratus than Cu, don't you think?"

[Sloppy Link]

Middle Wallop, late eighties, Graham the Met walks in and on cue, turns on the OHP and places his vu-foil on the screen. Turns on the light and looks with horror at the screen which has lumo-colour pen splodges all over it because it has got wet. Turns to audience and apologises for the state of the vu-foil to which a senior instructor of Scottish descent says "You didn't know it was going to rain, did you?"
No amount of protests could save his pride so he gave up and walked out to roars of laughter. You had to be there really. I'll get my coat. (Duffel)

[BEagle]

In the days before lumocolours, a mate spent a good few minutes drawing up a beautiful set of met briefing slides using red, blue and black chinagraphs. Good use of colour - cold front in blue and warm front in red, etc.

Enter the rest of the team for the brief. Usual $hit, "Morning everyone. Right - the Met sitch.....CLICK" The image is perfectly displayed but, since chinagraph is opaque to light, all the detail is in black.

"Sorry team. Colour's gone on this projector, so we'll have to make do with monochrome....."

And no-one queried what he said for one moment.....

I know - 'cos it was I!!

[Rude C'man]

TLP last year at Leuchars
All assembled for mass brief of comao, Met man stands up

Tallks in language even the ardent scots wouldn't understand and then gives out light levels foe the nights sortie. After much umminh and aaaring the fast jet mates are now scrubbing sorties or re-hashing the plot.

4 hrs later after commao package SH lands last (now theres a a shock) after carrying out a low level NEO in some of the best lit skys I ever flown in ....

Turned out the predicted light levels were for Australia...... Met mennn ... nuff said get Crystal balls there more reliable :eek:

[henry crun]

Night flying briefing and the met man finishes by saying " you will get the first sortie in but fog will form at 2200hrs"

Flight commander points dramatically to the window and exclaims " well how do you account for the sudden deterioration in the visibility ?"
We all look and sure enough, the dispersal edge lights are blurred and the runway lights are barely visible.

Met man walks to window, rubs off condensation and says " any more questions ?"

-------
Different night flying brief, same met man hangs up his chart and looks for pointer thingy. Someone suggests that its in the other crew room, so off he goes to get it.

While he is away someone puts a match to his chart and by the time it is extinguished everything west of the Irish Sea is gone.

Met man returns with pointer and without missing a beat points to the charred edge of his chart and says " the main feature tonight is this active warm front approaching from the west"

[oldpinger]

We had a Met man on the flat top grey floaty thing once, who forever more was nicknamed Dr Fog...

During the morning brief for the days flying he was asked by someone about the chances of fog, based on the sea temp being the same as the air temp and also very close to the dew point (must have been an IRE...)
"No chance" was the reply, and sure enough, the first aicraft launched, straight into a huge fog bank which "sprung up out of nowhere" and had to be recovered by an emergency low vis approach! Needless to say, many beers claimed from the weather guesser!

So why do they put windows on met offices?...

[ShyTorque]

Is the metman "Ian Charles Gale" still around? He was at Odiham in the 1980s.

Check out those initials - they are genuine and that's what always used to appear at the bottom of his forecast!

===================

Or Jan K****t?

She'll never forget the night the Blacktop team were stood down one hour before the 2 foot deep "no chance of any snow tonight" arrived, totally cutting off the area so that the team couldn't get back in!

Love you Jan! :o XXX

ShyT

[BEagle]

At a famous Hunter base in Pembrokeshire in the mid-70's we were all assembled one dark and gloomy day. The cloud was sitting on top of the roof of the 'Biscuit factory' (the 'facility' run by Capt Jacobs, USN - hence the nickname) and snow was gently falling. In bounces the Stn Cdr, "Morning Metman!" he said, "Have some actual" as he slung a snowball unerringly at the Met man. The snowball hit him on the chest and bounced onto his lovely pretty slides of thick cloud which dissolved into a multi-coloured gunge.

"The weather today will be somewhat changeable, but on the whole not very nice" said the Metman - so we all stacked for an early weekend!

[Wholigan]

Bruggen - early 80s. Met brief in squadron hard over "talking orange".

Met man: "We'll have regular showers throughout the day."

Question from sqn: "How long will they last?"

Met man: "About 15 minutes each".

Question: "How frequent will they be?"

Met man: "About 3 or 4 each hour".

!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

[Descend to What Height?!?]

We expect the fog to lift by 10:30!
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[PlasticCabDriver]

Or the almost daily weather from the ever so talented Aldergrove Met office

Rain showers and/or sunny patches and/or overcast at 100' and/or nil wx. Tops anywhere from 500' to 30000'. Possibility of hill fog, snow, tornadoes or mist. Wind from the East or West. Freezing level somewhere between ground level and the edge of space. It will be dry or rainy or both. It may also do anything that I haven't thought of but I'm hedging my bets so our stats look good.

EGAA 0615 EVERYTHING PROB 40 TEMPO ANYTHING

[Bright-Ling]

Whilst in the tower at MPA, I was disapponted that the wx hadn't cleared so couldn't get a back seat in an F4.

"Open plan" tower - with spiral stairs.

Gobby me - didn't see SMetO (Wg Cdr 'equiv') coming up - and describing Met men as having a "F***ing degree in waffle and talking ****"

Followed by silence, giggling from my chums and a visit to SATCOS office.....again.

[FJJP]

The venerable Jack at Wyton in the 80's. Walked into the main briefing room, threw down a slide and switched on the ohp showing the day's cross section. Completely blank except for capitals 'LPC'. Says 'any questions?'

Some wag says 'wot LPC?'

'Little Puffy Clouds' says Jack and promptly sat down!

Shortest met brief in history!