Taceval Tales
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St Mawgan (Mid 90s)
Can't remember the exact year, and it does not really matter, but half of Kinloss deployed to St Mawgan for taceval; the plan being for 6-8 Nimrods and half of all crews, and half the station personnel to deploy to sunny St Mawgan in June for a week of fun and frolics.
Now everyone knows that the weather in Cornwall in summer is always lovely, so come the second day, when the majority (remaining 6 or so aircraft) were due to land, how we laughed as we sat on the ground at STM listening to aircraft overshooting all day in an attempt to land. The legendary 30 kt, across the runway, fog had come in and stayed for the next 48 hours.
Thursday night, Friday night and the rest of the weekend were spent down town in Newquay, and to round off a thoroughly good taceval for our crew, we diverted back to Kinloss on our first flight on the Monday. Numerous other aircraft were also spread across airbases in the south of England as the fog returned each evening.
Funnily enough can't ever remember Kinloss deploying to STM ever again.
Y_G
Now everyone knows that the weather in Cornwall in summer is always lovely, so come the second day, when the majority (remaining 6 or so aircraft) were due to land, how we laughed as we sat on the ground at STM listening to aircraft overshooting all day in an attempt to land. The legendary 30 kt, across the runway, fog had come in and stayed for the next 48 hours.
Thursday night, Friday night and the rest of the weekend were spent down town in Newquay, and to round off a thoroughly good taceval for our crew, we diverted back to Kinloss on our first flight on the Monday. Numerous other aircraft were also spread across airbases in the south of England as the fog returned each evening.
Funnily enough can't ever remember Kinloss deploying to STM ever again.
Y_G
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Binbrook, early 80's. Air Raid Warning Red, so occupants of the line hut rush out and stand within a 12x2 white rectangle which is supposed to be the "Exercise Slit Trench"(!)
.
Taceval member standing by with clipboard making notes when a horn sounds and everyone looks around to see the "Roach Coach" (NAAFI Wagon) approahing on it's morning visit.
Taceval man looks on speechless as the "Line" pick up the tapes marking the slit trench and trot off and form an orderly queue behind the NAAFI wagon for their coffee and pies!
.Taceval member standing by with clipboard making notes when a horn sounds and everyone looks around to see the "Roach Coach" (NAAFI Wagon) approahing on it's morning visit.
Taceval man looks on speechless as the "Line" pick up the tapes marking the slit trench and trot off and form an orderly queue behind the NAAFI wagon for their coffee and pies!
Join Date: May 2005
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Does any body else remember the famous Sunday at Waddo when to pre empt the call out everybody was ordered into work at midday? Forethought had not entered the equation, with the Raven Club bars being left open with obvious consequences. Hardly anybody fit for work, mega carry outs from the bar when closing time was reached, and one of the best booze ups I can ever recall attending. Never got called in early again though.
Join Date: Aug 2000
Location: Liverpool based Geordie, so calm down, calm down kidda!!
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St Angelo in NI, Flt Lt Jayteeto servicing the Puma on the top deck with the crewman doing downstairs service. Man with gun and balaclava running towards guard hut, pointing at the sangar. I jumped off the top deck and with my fuller figure, I nearly broke both ankles, scrabbled for pistol, loaded and made ready to be a hero. Said "terrorist" had stopped and was chatting to a WO2 at the gatehouse. When they realised how close we had been to me shooting the exercise terrorist, they both turned grey. I was my normal reserved self!! and there was an embarrassed pongo flown home the next day.
Wyton circa 78: Someone got a heads up that a Taceval was in the offing in the early hours of Monday morning. All arrived Sunday afternoon, briefed and went into 'war mode'. When the Taceval team turned up and found the station was all ready there was hell to pay. No bars Sunday for us though 
Edited to change 88 to 78
Edited to change 88 to 78
"Flt Lt Jayteeto servicing the Puma on the top deck with the crewman doing downstairs service."
Shouldn't this be in the
'Events you never thought would happen'
thread?
CG
Shouldn't this be in the
'Events you never thought would happen'
thread?
CG
Join Date: Aug 2000
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With crewmen like ABIW about, I was too scared to 'go and do the paperwork'!! My coffee would have been unfit for human consumption...... Cappuccino Sir??
Speaking of which, a story from Richie Rees, who sadly is no longer with us. The Puma landed by a field 'T' on Salisbury Plain one horrible winters night. A cold crew tried to get a warm in the MAOT landrover, but Flt Lt No***es made them all squeeze in the back while he hogged the 2 front seats to himself. He ordered/demanded his army signaller to make him a coffee, no please or pleasantries. The siggy brewed up and added a huge gob of spit to the cup and passed it forward to the RAFs finest. Richie collared him and said- "He will notice that!!", the reply was....... "He hasn't noticed for the last few months!!".
Speaking of which, a story from Richie Rees, who sadly is no longer with us. The Puma landed by a field 'T' on Salisbury Plain one horrible winters night. A cold crew tried to get a warm in the MAOT landrover, but Flt Lt No***es made them all squeeze in the back while he hogged the 2 front seats to himself. He ordered/demanded his army signaller to make him a coffee, no please or pleasantries. The siggy brewed up and added a huge gob of spit to the cup and passed it forward to the RAFs finest. Richie collared him and said- "He will notice that!!", the reply was....... "He hasn't noticed for the last few months!!".
I gave up when they sounded called recall at 07:01. We all rush in an hour early ( 2nd line ) and get on with it. After an hour or two, hunger starts rearing its head. Mess get a call "can we have some banjos etc please?"
"No"
"Why not?"
"recall went off after 07:00 - we don't have to feed you"
And there's us dilligent, fast reporting, unshaven, un breakfasted, un-butty box equipped souls left hungry.
Next reacall - shower, shave, breakfast and get in at slow time.
"No"
"Why not?"
"recall went off after 07:00 - we don't have to feed you"
And there's us dilligent, fast reporting, unshaven, un breakfasted, un-butty box equipped souls left hungry.
Next reacall - shower, shave, breakfast and get in at slow time.
Kinloss 1987
A novel way to initiate a callout: the whining sound of the siren is completely drowned out by what, at silly o'clock in the morning, sounds like a whole squadron of Nimrods being fired up in the Engine Run bay. Said bay was fairly close to the MQs and the noise was deafening. It did the trick but it never happened again!
But I digress. A quick s, s & s and I'm on my bike cycling past the Officers' Mess on my way to the Passive Defence Cell in the GDCC when I notice a supposed crashed Land Rover across the road with a driver with an orange arm band lying on the floor. The medic had arrived to see to his 'injuries' a few seconds before me. I naturally stopped to see if I could be of assistance. The following exchange took place:
Medic: Is this NODUF or is it an exercise inject?
'Casualty': What the f*** else do you think I'd be doing, lying here freezing my bollocks off at 3 o'clock in the morning?
But I digress. A quick s, s & s and I'm on my bike cycling past the Officers' Mess on my way to the Passive Defence Cell in the GDCC when I notice a supposed crashed Land Rover across the road with a driver with an orange arm band lying on the floor. The medic had arrived to see to his 'injuries' a few seconds before me. I naturally stopped to see if I could be of assistance. The following exchange took place:
Medic: Is this NODUF or is it an exercise inject?
'Casualty': What the f*** else do you think I'd be doing, lying here freezing my bollocks off at 3 o'clock in the morning?
Last edited by DSAT Man; 3rd Feb 2007 at 08:29. Reason: spelling
First TacEval
During the early 70s, the 'Kipper Fleet' were brought, kicking and screaming, into the 20th century and into Strike Command. I was at St Mawgan, home of the Flighty Punter and its OCU, but serving on a Canberra sqn that had been lodged out of the way there - 7 Sqn. Of course, the sub hunters took themselves very seriously, and the 'canny' types - being upstarts - took the p*** mercilessly.
Came the day we were all informed that Strike Command's favourite executive team-building prog would start to apply, but gently, and we 'cannies' were intrigued to find out what we'd be required to do. 'Nothing much' was the answer from Can SqnCdr BB, 'we don't have a war role. This is just to 'ease the springs' of the Nims. But we'll be ready....' And a set of cascade/generation plans were readied , briefed and kept on the SqnOps desk within the Station Ops Block.
Now, half our sqn was hairy-arsed ex-RAFG, well-practiced in this stuff, married and mostly living around in places like St Evil - and t'other half were punchy young first-tourists living mostly on base. The Nimrod guys, having been there since Montgolfier balloons and Shacks, mostly lived in their Newquay hotels and boarding houses ( for many of them, the ScareForce was a kind of part-time hobby ). So we sat back to see what would happen.
I came back on a Sunday night from a GF visit up-country, and drove up to the Ops Block to check the Monday am FlyProg, to see if I was on it, before dropping into the Mess bar. I'd just said 'Hello' to the Duty Ops O and signed out the Sqn keys when the GuardRoom phoned to say that the TacEval team had arrived and was on its way up the hill. I ran the 30 yards down the corridor to 7 Sqn's Ops Room door, lifted the phone back to StnOps and reported '7 Sqn Ops manned' less than a minute after the TacEval team had started the clock ticking. Then I phoned the O/Mess bar, and a dozen of the guys were in there, who jumped straight into cars and hared up the hill. They arrived about the same time as the TacEval team, who joined the queue to get in via our open and lit door. Three of our guys were on the phones to start the cascade before the TacEval team had even got to StnOps ( they had to ask one of our guys to guide them there ) and we had 4 aircraft reported manned, ready to go - Cockpit Readiness - on the StnOps board before the first Nimrod Ops guy turned up. Our cascade/generation plan had 18 crews in and all 10 'S' aircraft ready to fly before the first Nimrod was posted as available. Of course, they had no such plan....
After a bit, the TacEval team leader stood us down with 'It's not really you guys we're interested in. If the Mess bar's not shut yet, you'd better go and have a debrief ( wink! )'
The next day was, for us, a load of slapstick, as we were in 'lurkers' mode. The boss had cancelled our tasking and sent the marrieds off home, keeping the singlies on the sqn and out of trouble, so we just sat around outside on the pan - in chairs a la WW2 - being obnoxious to the harried Nimrodies. Periodic noises over the Tannoy about 'SST and EOD', 'Practice fires' and stuff. Then came the 'Survival Scramble'..... Oh, dear, Oh, dear.
There was a Tannoy message, followed some minutes later by one 4-jet starting up, then another, and another...... then the unmistakable sound of a 'wind-down'. From the Nimrod dispersal - along the disused runway - came a procession of Flighty Punters. Some turned right for the long taxi to the downwind threshold, other turned left for the short way to the upwind end. 'Interesting', remarked the Older QFI to the Younger QFI. 'I think I'll observe this from a safe distance', and he wandered off to watch from The Tower, making himself immune from serving on a Board of Inquiry.
Two got off downwind - just. The other procession whined its way at a 'fast walk' past Ground Zero, as we had named our patch of tarmac in front of Station Ops, and we noted that the leader had three engines running - not four. Apparently a fouled-up start sequence that they then decided they couldn't fix, so - instead of continuing, crossing the runway threshold onto the north-side taxiway, and out of the way, this berk decided to taxy onto the grass to let the others past.... With predictable results. A string of Nimrods, with practice ( ? ) 'sensitive weapons' loaded, engines running, stuck on the taxiway. No reverse gear....
Only four, eventually, got off. One with only two Sensor Ops, another with sixteen of them. And none of them with any Codes, for they'd not written that into any plan. The rest were towed back to their dispersals.
Our Boss wandered off to have a word with the TacEval team leader. 'They've made their point, and there's going to be blood on the carpet over this', he shared with us. 'I wanted to get us all airborne, with a simultaneous startup and stream take-off a la RAFG, then some sqn formation overhead and a display - but they veto'ed that. Said they didn't want two Sqn Cdrs on the train up to London in the morning...... But we've been cleared for the three air tests we need to do.( Wink! )
So half-an-hour later, the two QFIs and the Sqn Display Pilot started up, taxied and streamed, then gave the best 3-Ship and Singleton Canberra display the West Country had seen - above the still snarled-up, parked-up Nimrod fleet.
Came the day we were all informed that Strike Command's favourite executive team-building prog would start to apply, but gently, and we 'cannies' were intrigued to find out what we'd be required to do. 'Nothing much' was the answer from Can SqnCdr BB, 'we don't have a war role. This is just to 'ease the springs' of the Nims. But we'll be ready....' And a set of cascade/generation plans were readied , briefed and kept on the SqnOps desk within the Station Ops Block.
Now, half our sqn was hairy-arsed ex-RAFG, well-practiced in this stuff, married and mostly living around in places like St Evil - and t'other half were punchy young first-tourists living mostly on base. The Nimrod guys, having been there since Montgolfier balloons and Shacks, mostly lived in their Newquay hotels and boarding houses ( for many of them, the ScareForce was a kind of part-time hobby ). So we sat back to see what would happen.
I came back on a Sunday night from a GF visit up-country, and drove up to the Ops Block to check the Monday am FlyProg, to see if I was on it, before dropping into the Mess bar. I'd just said 'Hello' to the Duty Ops O and signed out the Sqn keys when the GuardRoom phoned to say that the TacEval team had arrived and was on its way up the hill. I ran the 30 yards down the corridor to 7 Sqn's Ops Room door, lifted the phone back to StnOps and reported '7 Sqn Ops manned' less than a minute after the TacEval team had started the clock ticking. Then I phoned the O/Mess bar, and a dozen of the guys were in there, who jumped straight into cars and hared up the hill. They arrived about the same time as the TacEval team, who joined the queue to get in via our open and lit door. Three of our guys were on the phones to start the cascade before the TacEval team had even got to StnOps ( they had to ask one of our guys to guide them there ) and we had 4 aircraft reported manned, ready to go - Cockpit Readiness - on the StnOps board before the first Nimrod Ops guy turned up. Our cascade/generation plan had 18 crews in and all 10 'S' aircraft ready to fly before the first Nimrod was posted as available. Of course, they had no such plan....
After a bit, the TacEval team leader stood us down with 'It's not really you guys we're interested in. If the Mess bar's not shut yet, you'd better go and have a debrief ( wink! )'
The next day was, for us, a load of slapstick, as we were in 'lurkers' mode. The boss had cancelled our tasking and sent the marrieds off home, keeping the singlies on the sqn and out of trouble, so we just sat around outside on the pan - in chairs a la WW2 - being obnoxious to the harried Nimrodies. Periodic noises over the Tannoy about 'SST and EOD', 'Practice fires' and stuff. Then came the 'Survival Scramble'..... Oh, dear, Oh, dear.
There was a Tannoy message, followed some minutes later by one 4-jet starting up, then another, and another...... then the unmistakable sound of a 'wind-down'. From the Nimrod dispersal - along the disused runway - came a procession of Flighty Punters. Some turned right for the long taxi to the downwind threshold, other turned left for the short way to the upwind end. 'Interesting', remarked the Older QFI to the Younger QFI. 'I think I'll observe this from a safe distance', and he wandered off to watch from The Tower, making himself immune from serving on a Board of Inquiry.
Two got off downwind - just. The other procession whined its way at a 'fast walk' past Ground Zero, as we had named our patch of tarmac in front of Station Ops, and we noted that the leader had three engines running - not four. Apparently a fouled-up start sequence that they then decided they couldn't fix, so - instead of continuing, crossing the runway threshold onto the north-side taxiway, and out of the way, this berk decided to taxy onto the grass to let the others past.... With predictable results. A string of Nimrods, with practice ( ? ) 'sensitive weapons' loaded, engines running, stuck on the taxiway. No reverse gear....
Only four, eventually, got off. One with only two Sensor Ops, another with sixteen of them. And none of them with any Codes, for they'd not written that into any plan. The rest were towed back to their dispersals.
Our Boss wandered off to have a word with the TacEval team leader. 'They've made their point, and there's going to be blood on the carpet over this', he shared with us. 'I wanted to get us all airborne, with a simultaneous startup and stream take-off a la RAFG, then some sqn formation overhead and a display - but they veto'ed that. Said they didn't want two Sqn Cdrs on the train up to London in the morning...... But we've been cleared for the three air tests we need to do.( Wink! )
So half-an-hour later, the two QFIs and the Sqn Display Pilot started up, taxied and streamed, then gave the best 3-Ship and Singleton Canberra display the West Country had seen - above the still snarled-up, parked-up Nimrod fleet.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Laarbruch, '74, NATO Part 2 and the Ops bunker had been taken out. All the station execs were now spare parts and incommunicado.
Then, under a desk, I spied OC Ops Wg on the telephone - verboten - and someone else sureptitiously adjusting a tote display.
"Oh it just fell off."
and OC Ops?
OC Ops explained to the TL that it was hos wife on the phone. She had just driven past the gymnasium and had rung to complain that there were a lot of men outside all exposing themselves.
The temperature was zero and they were a load of Bundeswehr intruders caught by the SRF
OC Ops could not explain why he had been on his hands and knees under his desk though.
Then, under a desk, I spied OC Ops Wg on the telephone - verboten - and someone else sureptitiously adjusting a tote display.
"Oh it just fell off."
and OC Ops?
OC Ops explained to the TL that it was hos wife on the phone. She had just driven past the gymnasium and had rung to complain that there were a lot of men outside all exposing themselves.
The temperature was zero and they were a load of Bundeswehr intruders caught by the SRF
OC Ops could not explain why he had been on his hands and knees under his desk though.
