Biggin Groundsmen

[langleybaston]

Today's D Tel article on Biggin Hill has a photo captioned

"Groundsmen re-arm a Spitfire"

Not a broom or shovel in sight.

Nice try. My father was presumably a LG in the Battle, flying his barrage balloon over Coventry.

[Tankertrashnav]

We can expect little better from the media. Virtually nobody among their numbers has a clue about service matters, and this applies to all three services. As well as this RAF example, we constantly see references to "battleships" when they mean warships. And has anyone other than a journalist talked about "looping the loop" since around 1925 (back in the news with the start of the Shoreham Hunter trial).

[Whenurhappy]

Oh, and anything green is a tank; any weapon used by Johnny Raghead is a Kalashnikov. And each service has 'top brass' - a term I never heard in my time in the RAF or MOD.

The learning point from that is the Services will need to continue to work hard to inform journalists; not that this is an exclusive profession these days as anyone can post anything, and give their uneducated opinion.

[ACW342]

In Northern Ireland whilst working for a large broadcasting corporation, I have, on more than one occasion, had to inform the TV news room that Pumas and Chinooks were not "an army helicopter"

[Pontius Navigator]

Once wrote to my MP, a former barrister who would be used to precise language, and explained relationships between training, exercises and operations and that they had specific meanings.

She replied thanking me. She is now a junior minister and so far managed to keep he head below the parapet :)

[ShyTorque]

Anyone know what happens to the rest of an aircraft if it goes into a tailspin?

[cafesolo]

ACW342: For as long as the IRA believed that anything camouflaged belonged the Army, no serious assaults were mounted against Aldergrove,or as it was known,Belfast International.

[ex82watcher]

Back in the 1980s,when I lived in Norfolk,the local auctioneers were regularly selling government-surplus stock.For £10,I bought a lawn-roller with an' Air Ministry' cast-iron plaque affixed.I wonder if it was used by groundsmen to fill-in the time between re-arming Spitfires ?

[Two's in]

In Northern Ireland whilst working for a large broadcasting corporation, I have, on more than one occasion, had to inform the TV news room that Pumas and Chinooks were not "an army helicopter"

Quite rightly so! Everyone knows Army should have a capital A.

[Martin the Martian]

Don't forget that the armed forces uses lots of 'kit' and any modern fighter pilot is a Top Gun -in the same way that any WW2 fighter pilot was an ace.

[Tankertrashnav]

And all ex-servicemen and women (or "vets") are heroes.

I'm certainly not. (Not a vet either!).

Just thinking - journos must read this forum. Come on one of you - pitch in and let's hear your two-pennorth. Do you plead guilty or do you say it's because you haven't the time to get things right?