Pull up a sandbag ~ "I remember when..

[philrigger]

.............the Cinema At Airport Camp in Belize watching the uncut version of Dogs of War.
I remember the Dogs of War being filmed in downtown Belize about 1979/80.








'We knew how to whinge but we kept it in the NAAFI bar.'

[ORAC]

Airport Camp - scene of one of my greatest failures.

1979ish, the mess caught fire. Remembering the stories of the mess in Cyprus I immediately volunteered to save the bar books ( ). I bravely attempted to break into the bar without care to the risk to my own life. But they put out the fire before I managed to gain entry.

[Wiretensioner]

Dogs of War was also filmed on the civvy side of the airport. We tried to get the national flag of the fictitous nation of the top of the tower but to no avail. However the camera crew gave us some smaller flags for the SH det tables in the Sgt's Mess which upset the Army. Oh Happy Days

[A2QFI]

Akrotiri Mess fire(s)

I was there is 1961(ish) when the Mess burned to the ground, except for a the porcelain bits of the gents urinals and special loo that had been built for HM. It was around the 5th of the month and mess bills were still lurking in our letter racks. Those of us off duty rallied round to save the silver, the carpets and the mail from the mail boxes - the mess bills were sorted out and thrown back into the fire. However, the mess was large enough that we had a full time Mess Secretary and he managed to save his books and ledgers - b*gger! We did have a sale of a lot of scorched tinnies of beer for a few weeks afterwards so it was not all bad news!

[trap one]

Airport Camp

The "marking of the VC10 trooper or Herc flts with a "MAGIC" or "CRAP" board. Then getting a bollocking for giving HRH Prince Michael of Kent, who was out as Her Maj's representative for the Independance celabrations. As we gave him a flashing "CRAP by royal appointment" He had made the worse bounce on landing for quite a while, and he never flashed the lights when he came back after turning around and back tracking.

[ORAC]

I did the marking of the VC-10s when I was in Belize, but I can also remember doing it with lunch boxes in Luqa back on APC with the Lightnings in 76. A Shak made a horrendous landing resulting in a series of bounces resulting in a frantic waving of CRAP boxes (sic). Shortly thereafter the plods came along and confiscated them all.

The competition by the pilots was to see who could draw a recognisable penis with a contrail over the island when on recovery.

It was also where I passed my driving test. 100 yards up the road, U-turn, 100 yards down. Into the compound with all the straw bales and do the reversing/parking lining up the bits of coloured tape on the dash & steering wheel. Then off down town to get my international driving licence - which I drove on in Cyprus for the next 2 years.

Which leads to my driving test in Cyprus with the army 2 years later. When I asked the NCO examiner what happened if I failed, he looked at me in bemusement and said, "I'm sorry Sir, I don't understand the question".

[MReyn24050]

The showing of "The Godfather" in Belize City

Back in 1972 I went to the cinema downtown in Belize City to see the film "The Godfather"
When Don Zaluchi spoke the following lines there was almost a riot in the cinema:-
Don Zaluchi: "I, too, don't believe in drugs. For years I paid my people extra to stay away from that sort of stuff, but someone comes along saying, I've got powders where if you put up a three to four thousand dollar investment, you can make fifty thousand distributing, then there is no way to resist it. I want to keep it respectable".
[shouts form the cast]
Don Zaluchi: "I don't want it near schools. I don't want it sold to children! In my city, we'd keep the traffic in the Dark People, the Coloureds - they're animals anyway, so let them lose their souls".
At this point the shouts came from the audience followed by a hail of coke bottles etc thrown at the screen.

[wub]

Chivenor:
Phoning the tower from the wireless bay to get a green light to run across the runway, between Hunter four-ships, to get to work at the GCA site.
Stopping in the ejector seat bay to get a whiff of oxygen before running across the runway.
Nicking coal from behind the Airmens' Mess kitchen to keep our pot-bellied stoves going in E-Lines.
The cheap drinks in the bar of the combined mess when the station closed, the first time.
Troodos:
Going to work at Olympus on the back of a three-tonner on the first day of the year of KD dress, whilst wearing a parka and shorts.
Going on a night-ex with the Troodos MRT and ending up getting slaughtered in Sam's bar in Platres, before spending the night sleeping on the ground round the back.
Watching the Gen Office corporal spinning slowly across the MT yard on his back, after slipping on sheet ice.
Watching a fresh-faced Flying Officer's SD cap disappearing towards Morphou Bay just as he had finished telling me to put my beret on when I emerged from the back of a three-tonner, into the teeth of a gale, at Olympus.
The SWO at Akrotiri (Jack Mu**ay) roaring at our clerk, "Compliments Corporal" when he had failed to salute his Adj one December day and receiving the reply, "Why thank you sir, and a Merry Christmas to you too."
Putting on folk concerts at the Sub-Aqua Club at Akrotiri as a fresh-faced youth and 25 years later standing at the same spot as a slightly care-worn Flt Lt RAFVR(T) during annual Cyprus camp.
Whilst undergoing free-fall parachute training at Kingsfield, being told to go on a three-mile run, about two minutes after consuming a Ginsters pasty and a bottle of Seven Up from the Naafi wagon (that was messy )
Egg banjos from Dhekelia in 90 degree heat whilst gliding at Kingsfield.
'Kidnapping' Hillary someone from BFBS for charity when she visited Troodos, phoning BFBS and demanding a ransom to be told "Keep her".

[ORAC]

Whilst undergoing free-fall parachute training at Kingsfield

I remember doing that - still got my certificate 30 years later for my 10 jumps - though I never jumped again. Do you remember the old Rumanian(?) pilot who flew the aircraft for it?

Claimed to have flown for the Luftwaffe against the Russians and "bailed" out without a parachute over the Ukraniane by rolling off the back of the wing into a cornfield...

[Wader2]

Originally Posted by Al R

Scalies that rooms would be requisitioned and recompense at the MoD war scaling contingency scale of £1.50 (or something) would be granted.

Or the prat of an OC Admin at Akrotiri who decided that all the distant living out officers could bunk up with the living in officers on an exercise.

The bondu was littered with camp beds, blankets, pillows and all the doors locked. We told him that hey could bunk up in the geust rooms in the on base MQs.

Didn't happen!

[Airborne Aircrew]

Some more spring to mind:

1. Belize, 1986: Naval Exchange pilot Bill M***** and Crewman Dave A**** have returned from Jamaica after Op Jubilee and there is no room in accommodation at APC so they are sent, at Liz's expense, to San Pedro to wait for the Gozome bird. They get bored and decide to go SCUBA diving. This decision was alarming insofar as Dave was never, err.. shall we say, the strongest swimmer. It got funnier as they related the story. When asked who had the most experience it was decided that Bill did because he started a course once and wore the gear in a pool. The conversation about how many weights to put on a weight belt was equally amusing but the bit that really cracked us up was when the dive master took them into a cave... and they followed... I'm a diver myself nowadays and have spent a few hours below - my wife and I will never enter an overhead environment... because it's too bloody dangerous... My hat's off to you two... though I suspect it was more ignorance than courage that took you in there...
2. Leaving the hotel bar in the hotel at the very top of the sand main street of San Pedro with John W***** one Saturday night and making our way back to the Green Turtle Hotel(?). Copious quantities of alcoholic beverages had been consumed throughout the day. I have no idea why but it was decided that we should "swim" back down the middle of the street back to our hotel.
3. Being told by an Army major to get up and act like SNCO's while "swimming" the main street and telling him he'd better start paddling or he'll drown...
4. Said Major giving up trying to make us behave like SNCO's and leaving us alone.
5. The Tackle Box. Ahhh, the biggest and best Pina Colada's, (or Penis Enlargers as they were known), in the world. They came in a thick glass "Brandy Globe" that holds about 2 pints and cost $4 Belizean. The floor was sand with ships portholes built into it so you could see the water below - it was on the end of a wooden jetty.
6. Working out that if you ask the barkeep about the weather just as he started to pour the Appleton's Rum you could get the better part of 1/3rd of a bottle poured before he stopped.
7. Taking the resulting Pina Colada out the door at the back and sit watching the sharks, Bonefish, Turtles, Rays etc. in the pen at the back while getting "gently toasted".
8. The huge burgers that we would get at Journey's End.
9. Talking of burgers, the greasy "Chee'bugger"s we would buy at the Chogie Walla's snack bar in Aldergrove in the late 70's/early 80's. Heart attack in a bun... But they had an unusually attractive smell and taste...
10. The impromptu air displays that, allegedly, would take place upon arrival at Journey's End on Sunday mornings at the behest of John and Jenny for the entertainment of their paying guests.
11. Beach Volleyball, al la "Top Gun", at Journey's End.
12. Sitting on the end of the jetty at Journey's End while ledgering a piece of dead fish 30 yards out and catching a nice Bonefish. What made it special was that it was right in front of a chap in a boat, with a guide and all the proper fly fishing kit who said "I'm paying $500 a day for four days for this and I haven't caught a thing. You sit there drinking a cocktail on the end of a jetty with a bit of chum on the hook and you're pulling them in"....
13. Having just seen A|R's Cyprus post... Being up on Acamus Training Area preparing to bivvy up for the night on top of a particularly inhospitable hilltop that was comprised of bits of rock littered all over one great big piece of rock and finding that every fourth or fifth bit of rock had it's own resident scorpion.

[Wader2]

Originally Posted by Airborne Aircrew

I'm a diver myself nowadays and have spent a few hours below - my wife and I will never enter an overhead environment... because it's too bloody dangerous... My hat's off to you two... though I suspect it was more ignorance than courage that took you in there...

Shark's Bay at Akrotiri, free diving through the tunnel into the bay and meeting a Grouper. Not sure who was more surprised.

Free diving into a pot hole off shark's cove, perhaps 20 feet down and have to face with a grouper standing on its tail. Not sure . . .

[1859sqn]

Being on the entertainments committee at Muharraq in '70/'71 and serving Marty Wilde a whiskey whilst he stood there in his underpants before he did a CSE performance. (Now if that had been his daughter Kim a few years later.........!)

[wub]

Do you remember the old Rumanian(?) pilot who flew the aircraft for it?

It wasn't a Rumanian when I was there but a guy called Hugh who was hours-building and worked for free. He was a real wierdo. I remember on one jump as I got myself into position in the door of the Beaver I looked up, to see him staring back at me from inside a diving mask!

[orgASMic]

I remember when ...

The University of London Air Sqn had:

• A wg cdr boss (who kept his boys and girls out the dwang at Abingdon).
• 10 aircraft (the mighty SA Bulldog).
• An applicant-vetting policy run by the senior studes.
• Some of the best totty in the University (see above).
• The cheapest bar in London.
• The odd party on the underground platform at Town HQ.
• Pipe-smoking as a part of the sortie brief.
• Deck chairs and croquet outside the sqn during summer flying camps, like we had seen in the movies.
• Roof parties (including 'waving' at the occasional red Wessex).
• Insane ski trips (don't remember much of my 20th birthday in la Plagne).
• A very flexible beer account with Morlands brewery.
• The cheapest accomodation in the West End.

Happy days!

[Once A Brat]

Deck chairs and croquet outside the sqn during summer flying camps, like we had seen in the movies.

I remember a member of London UAS, on summer camp at the home of the Norfolk Land Shark, stapled to ground by said croquet hoops outside the Officers Mess one happy hour for being a gobby little know it all.

Fair point about the totty though (judging by what was brought on camp!)


Trenchard's Finest.......Once a brat, always a Brat!

[BEagle]

On Summer Camp in the Land of the Pisky, one git had been caught being a Peeping Tom in the girls' accommodation.

So he too got the croquet hoop treatment, followed by having his act 'cleaned up' by all the left over washing up water following the excellent dinner which the girls had put on over at the squadron. Served him right!!

I remember:

UAS Summer Camps away from base.
UAS bosses who were pilots.
UASs with more than 1 QFI....
Students being allowed to fly solo glide circuits.
Students being allowed to practise PFLs to land on the aerodrome.
Students being allowed to fly solo aeros.
Students being allowed to fly solo formation.
Students being allowed to be students!


All sadly killed off by the miserable bean counters, I hear. But lots of jolly sporty things and muddy grunt games instead.....

Although it was good to note that some sound sorting criteria is obviously still applied during Freshers' recruiting, from what I saw recently at ULAS..

I deplore the dumbing down of the UAS system. No excuse or weasel-words, it is an utter scandal. Nothing less.

[Llademos]

Dets at Chivenor with rotary and fixed wing, staying at the Saunton Sands Hotel because the mess was full

'marking' the landings of Hawks at Chivenor from side of the taxiway with cards

Getting a call from Harry Staish thanking me and the rest of the scorers for the 6.0 on 'his' landing (and no we didn't know it was him!)

running in IOT in boots and webbing

going to Berlin through checkpoints Alpha and Bravo

going to East Berlin in No 1's (or No 5's if in the evening and visiting the theatre/opera) via Checkpoint Charlie

93,000 people in the RAF

[RETDPI]

Dumbing down

The sick thing is Beags that it is our generation ,having had the fun, that has been in the middle of the dumbing down process.
Senior Flight Cadet Stirrup please take note. ( Who , incidentally, missed the chance to go to University)

[etonrifle]

Standing stag duty the night of my 21st birthday at Catterick.

Being the second to last OCTU course through Henlow.

First FJ experience.

Being MD'd for loss of eye.

Missing it.

ER.