PPRuNe Forums - Aircraft which brought Elizabeth ll back to London after her father's death.

Thanks guys , That's the cannon , never walked past it to read the plaque , mostly in a rush to sign in on time . Every day's a school day .
The cop shop , I knew had moved . Last in at 0300 ish one spring night in '84/'85 ......
I'd 'volunteered' off standby for an evening of hostage negotiator training . With said negotiators , Hijackers, Police Cadet pax. and rumoured 'Bois from the Welsh borders . Started with 2 F/Os, 3 C/C , cadets and hijackers on semi-defunct Trident 3. Got the APU fired up for elecs , a/con, galleys , out by Comet Corner , towards threshold of Rwy09L. Started at 1800 with cadets having rations and urns . Hijackers made themselves known , red button pressed . Various cop cars , tranny vans , and khaki coloured vehicles trailed after a yellow BAA follow me car . We were surrounded !
Various megafone chats , leading to a landline coming aboard . Just before dusk with the makings of a long night ahead , crew realised Cadets had catering but none for us ..
Onto Speedbird Co. freq. ordered 5 hot dinners [ no cheese tray ] . 20 mins later big scissor lift catering truck trundles down taxiway towards us , to find it blocked by khaki truck , slows to go onto grass and around .... 2 men in black , balaclavas and SLRs leap up , haul out the catering delivery guys . Spreadeagled on grass with an SLR in their ears , lots of gesticulations and blue air ... Eventually released to feed us by now cold meals , whose deliverers had huge grins and wide eyes when thy appeared at the catering door . They weren't checked on the way out , leading head hijacker to comment they should have got one of theirs out that way ...
It became clear that the negotiaters were not doing well , and hijackers had by Stockholm Syndrome become mates. Head Hijacker in the cockpit got involved on 'fone hands busy ... Says I , '' I'll hold your gun ''..... finished his chat and ''wheres my AK47'' ?
''Sorry mate it slipped out of the DV window '' ..
Eventually scenario moved on to geeting the all Trident occupants to disembark .... All were meant to be suspects and facedown frisked by Bois in black ..
Started well , quickly disintegrated to farce .
1st. Lovely lady purser not young but a game lady , who we knew well ... Searched ok , stood up to walk to police crew bus ... Fumbled in her uniform blouse , turned around to her searcher and standing by Officer .... '' Here Boys , Catch '' as she tossed them the 2 hand grenades from her bra ... she'd had a double masectomy a few years previous !
2nd. Still had 1/2 the a/c to go when 'Boi in black crouched by LH main wheel , called endex and fire trucks for real evac ... he had fuel dripping onto him .
''Nah '' , we said it's the normal Trident wing cracks , papered over by those plates .. '' we'd go flying in this if needed to , it's safe and legal ''.

All off to cop shop at 0300, for beer and butties , 'cept negotiators who were off for further training .

rgds condor .