Pull up a sandbag ~ "I remember when..

[Maple 01]

Wanting to kill Baz Riley for being more of a nob than Steve Wright on the radio

[Airborne Aircrew]

A|R:

You'd better get all these down before Alzheimer's kicks in...

But you did dig up a few more for me...

Smells:-

1. The smell, (and oppressive heat/humidity), when they opened the door of the VC-10 in Belize.
2. The smell of my freshly washed and dried, (in Belize), clothes when I opened my holdall in the UK.
3. The smell of my arm past he elbow after mistaking a dead sheep for a rock while white water canoing on the Spey and trying to use it as a brake...
4. The smell of a certain WRAC attached to 8 Signals in Catterick that was so "fishy" I quit...
5. The smell of a block at Xmas in NI after a day and night's toga party that ended with a puking competition.
6. The smell of acrid sweat on troops that have been in the jungle two days or more
7. The smell of "clean" after having had the acrid sweat smell after 4 days in the jungle

Silly Buggers:-

1. Jamaica: Russian trade delegation staying in the same hotel. Many a happy few minutes as they waited for transport spent trying to confuse and confound their political "handlers", (babysitters), by getting close to them and trying to start conversations with the members of the delegation from multiple directions at the same time...
2. Nearly convincing the hooker in Raul's that the $5 watch on my wrist was really a $100 watch and getting laid and change... Failed... So I paid...
3. Being drunk on a sunday and doing parachute drills from the third floor of the temporary block we were assigned at Catterick Garrison prior to the move to Hullavington. Bruising my heel doing it and still suffering from it today.
4. Answering the Int. Cell phone at Aldergrove "Duuuhhh.... Intelligence..." when my OC called me one day.
5. Being called to his office and being "straightened out".
6. Being called to my OC's office 2 days later for the same offense!!!
7. Being told _not_ to aim at the sheep on the hills behind the butts only to watch a sheep "fall when hit" by someone down the line of shooters.
8. Hearing that all those sheep that fell over suddenly when we flew over that ridge near Faslane at extremely low level were, in fact, dead... (Wimps... )

Miscellaneous:

1. The T-shirt after the FI stating "That's what happens when you pull the Lion's tail"
2. Visiting Special Branch at Aldergrove just before Xmas and being taken to a huge room with kitchen-type cabinets all round the wall with red crosses on them. When they were opened they were all full of optics with all manner of booze.
3. Being forced to drink some Potchine (sp) made by a talented gent in Magherafelt(sp) that the SB allowed to keep making it as long as they got "theirs", (because it was unique tasting and not that raw sh1t most of it was), before I was allowed any booze from the "kitchen cabinets".
4. Being sh1t scared carrying a pint of it back to the mainland... but making it...
5. Seeing the _really_ small pile of ashes that remain when a SWB Landrover has "spontaneously combusted".
6. Watching a sheep come out from under the hulk of an old tank that is used on the 84mm "Charlie G" range when a live round is fired at it.

[Airborne Aircrew]

I guess 2 sqn wasn't on the main side when you went through.

Nope... It was on the far side of the airfield. IIRC I only walked it twice... That was definitely the better of the two crossings.

You're young then....

[the_flying_cop]

when i visited all FOUR sqadrons of tonkas at Laarbruch.

when i did a 30 hour flying scholarship for the total cost of £13.54

taking over the (name escapes me) dogfighting simulator at coninsgby for the day - the one which had the 2 inflatable domes complete with airlocks.
eating my first twinky (american confec.) at the USAF bowling alley at Brawdy

Being interviewed by some Wing Co. re careers advice at age 14 years. "When i said relax i didnt mean slouch boy!"

I remember when eating a Wham Bar would blow your taste buds and your ears simultaneously - and all for only 10p.


TFC

[dkh51250]

Buying tins of lighter fluid so that you could perform the ceremony of "burning the bedsprings" to get rid of the bedbugs in Masirah. Cadging empty tin cans from the mess, that could be filled with paraffin, one for each bed leg to stand in, to stop the ants climbing the legs. Tying chit chats to bed legs to keep the insect population down.

[Samuel]

More smells...
The smell of Africa very early in the morning on the airfield at Eastleigh and seeing some of the most spectacular sunrises ever [Eastleigh being at 5000'or so]
The smell of Africa in the markets of Nairobi.
Saying to your 'girl-friend', "smile so I can see you"
Getting three people into the boot of a Wolseley 6/80 at Eastleigh to avoid paying at the Drive-in movie.
Being surprised at how cold Africa can be at night [altitude again].
Being asked by Ops to 'remove that gazelle' from the runway'.
The 'clear the runway' signal from Air Traffic, put into effect by said air trafficer yelling "Bang the gong" to an ancient African sitting by a CO2 cylinder suspended on a frame. It worked much better than the high -tech alarm bell they replaced him with!
The Hastings which bounced so high on landing it came down on the grass and continued across the bundu!
The speed with which the crew of a 58 Sqn Canberra vacated through the canopy after going cross-country at Eastleigh. The same by a Javelin crew at Tengah after departing the runway via that mossie ditch.
The speed at which the lineys departed an engine start fire on said Javelins after first trying to put it out with a beret.
Collecting a Javelin pilot walking along the road in Jurong after ejecting from his Javelin, and feeling sorry I couldn't meet his request for a smoke because I didn't.[It was his third ejection!].
Watching the air-flow over a Javelin wing on take-off, indicated by the moisture in the air.
The smell at Gong Kedah after torrential rain had just flattened our tent.
Watching "What's New Pussycat?" in reverse at Gong Kedah because we'd all seen it a few times..
Throwing empty Tiger cans at the vehicles which occasionally passed between the projector and the screen...

[dkh51250]

The Sally Army canteen at Waddo

The YMCA canteen at Catterick

The Mally at Gutersloh

Sandes Home at Catterick

Anybody notice a theme here?

[Al R]

dkh,

Thats a seperate thread in its own right!!

But here we go.

The Twig at Catterick,
The bowl at Greenham,
Lady L's at Akr, The Pickled Onion club, our bar.. the Soldier Blue (christ, there must have been dozens of bars thgere).
The Mally at Witt, Rugby club there on Thursday night too.
The Scorpion in Catterick.
Tea and toast in the cafe on Sunday morning in Catterick village.

Smells then. Cheers AA.. you might just be right. I'm leaving a link to this thread for my kids in my will.

• The smell of hot empty ammunition cases and wpns oil.
• Opening the back of a CVR(T) after being battoned down for a bit in summer with half a dozen troops, all of whom have been living on compo for x days.
• The inside of an NBC suit worn for a few days.
• Fresh sandbags.. Luvverly.
• The worse job and smell in the world. Unravelling wet cam nets.
• Mossie repellant.
• Fullers Earth.
• Butts and Abe's beer belch competitions in the back of the tank.
• Bac deo in Cyprus. Sweat smelt better than that Himmleresque concoction.
• The jungle after the rain.
• The quality of the light and air at Kinloss.

[cornish-stormrider]

Phoning the SAR flt at Lossie for a surf report after they landed.

The SAR flt at Lossie pulling some doofus out of the Moray Firth who got caught in the rip at East and ended up clinging to a lobester pot about 1/2 a mile out. It made a great show from the Hopeman?? IIRC,

Getting attacked by Seals at Lossie who were surfing at the same time.

[snapper41]

Sek Kong:

Shaffi's curry house - try one on a Friday after the food's been 'marinating' for a week

The Duck Farm

The Dog Section

Games nights in the Mess at HMS Tamar with the Aussies

Ned Kelly's

Taking an unofficial visit aboard the QE2

Chinese New Year

Waving any scrap of paper you happened to have (bus ticket etc) at the Gurkha on the gate when you forgot your 1250 - and he'd let you in

Finding that, no matter how trashed your room had got the night before, it was always immaculate in the morning, with your clothes laundered and put away...God bless the armah!

Being able to live like a king on fg off wages

Happy daze!!

[NutLoose]

Barrack blocks at RAF odiham where in heavy rain the light shades would fill up with water (On the Ground Floor)

Rooms were about 20 people partitioned into 2 bedspaces with wardrobes in the centre to form a corridor.........

Someone writing to Farmers weekly saying " I have a room XYZ in size, heated and well lit, how many pigs would you recommend keeping in the said room........

Answer published in Farmers Weekly was about 1/2 the number of number of troops installed in said room........

Copied and posted about the station, removed even quicker by SWO..

First experiance of Odiham straight from training, knocking on the hatch and been met by a really nice old gent who letting me in making me a nice cup of tea and enquired if I knew anything about Growing Tomato's ( SWO)

[Sempre 206]

As an apprentice at Locking in 1966, when the dentist was an Air Cdre..

[FL575]

…when, in the early Seventies as the duty pilot at RAF Wyton, I watched as the first 8 aircraft to get airborne that morning were different types (not marks!) 6 of them were stationed there. In Squadron order:

Canberra (39 Sqn)
Varsity (51 Sqn)
Comet (51 Sqn)
Devon (207 Sqn)
Basset (207 Sqn)
Victor (543 Sqn)
JP (visitor)
Helicopter (fuel uplift)

[Airborne Aircrew]

9th November 1980:

Unusually, II Squadron had been moved in convoy to Germany for the annual NATO exercise rather than being dropped into Sennelager TA for the period. So that we kept our record of always jumping a drop was scheduled for this day at 1500hrs on West Wretham DZ in Yorkshire.

To a man the squadron all had the same idea and kit was forced into every crevice of the road party vehicles and our parachute containers were filled with booze and fags...

Beautiful jump... Bit of a rocky DZ but no injuries...90+ Rocks with sh1t eating grins are packing chutes and thinking how clever they are when the whisper comes down the DZ:-

"Customs!!!"

The gutsy amongst us wrapped the contraband in their chute and started to tab off the DZ. Others built cairns or buried the offending items. Vast quantities of petrol were expended returning to the DZ that night for people to try to find a bottle of Brandy or two they left out there. To this day I'm sure there is plenty of unclaimed contraband out there.

[denachtenmai]

FL575
51 Squadron-- Varsity--70's I don't think so, never had them, 151 had a couple at Watton I believe,(precursor to 51) but that was late 50's early 60's.
Regards Den.

[Airborne Aircrew]

AA,do you mean Norfolk?

Ok, now I'm a tad confused. My log book says Yorkshire. We were told it was West Wretham. There is no doubt that the countryside was Yorkshire, (rough, rocky with lichens, hilly etc.), and bore no resemblance to the Thetford area, (STANTA). It wasn't too far from Catterick either... Maybe 45 minutes to an hour.

Hmmm... Most likely we were told the wrong name for the DZ... Now I wonder what it was...

[Wholigan]

.... dinghy drill consisted of throwing an inflated single seat liferaft into the sea at Tobruk Beach Club, filling it with beer, red wine and coke and towing it out to the wooden raft for a raft party. Occasionally shouting orders back to the beach bar such as "Hey - Luigi - 3 more buckets of ravioli please!"

[Airborne Aircrew]

Dennis, the II Sqn Parachute Jump Instructor, (PJI), in the late 70's/early 80's.

1. On my first ever balloon jump in front of II Sqn we reached 800' in the balloon over RAF Catterick, he leaned over the "door" to check the flags, called "Green", unlatched and stowed the "door" and said "Goodbye" as he jumped leaving me with my chin on the floor in front of three hairy arsed old hands. I was number one and had to self dispatch with them all watching...
2. A few weeks later he rode a bike out of the balloon, held it all the way to about 20' before dropping it and landing.
3. About a year later on the way up in a balloon car asking me if I wanted to "somersault". He then unhooked my static line from the anchor above us, pulled it all out of the pack, passed it over my shoulder, between my legs and back up to the anchor point. Quite the way to begin a descent...

Someone, (A|R?), mentioned runs with a Jerry can. A mutual "friend" of his and mine was know as Human Hater when he was my Flt Sgt on II Sqn.

1. He would send us round Hullavington's Peri-track, (1 1/2 miles), with two jerry cans of water. He could sit in his office and watch us almost all the way around. The "almost" was the key word. We discovered that if we sprinted out of the hangar we could empty the cans and appear in the expected place in about the right time and then at the end of the run we would disappear behind a hangar with a tap. Another sprint and some fast filling and you could appear to have not stopped... He never did work that one out!!!
2. When several troops were on his wrong side he would send us to MT for a 1/2 ton trailer. Upon our return he would send us to stores with the trailer for, (I think it was half a dozen - it totally filled the trailer), 12 x 12's with poles. He would then send us running around the peri-track with it... Very hard work...

Smells revisited:-

1. Cheese Possessed
2. The smell in the Schnellie after two weeks in the field.
3. Using CS gas as a decongestant when you have a cold.
4. That 1/2 second of panic between the realization that you just smelled the CS gas through your S10 and actually feeling the effect...
5. Wet cam nets seconded!!!!
6. Issue Mossie repellant seconded too..

[FL575]

Den,

A long time ago I know, but was not Varsity WJ911 used on 51 Sqn to train rear cabin crew?

I just seem to remember it somehow, but I might be wrong.

Somebody out there WILL know, I am sure

[stickus_maximus]

"Beware Of Overstretch" posters were plastered everywhere