Pull up a sandbag ~ "I remember when..

[Airborne Aircrew]

Heh... My brother lives in Wan Chai now...

[sled dog]

Does anyone remember The Speakeasy in Kowloon ?
Used to be run by a Brian Nolan from Liverpool.
Red Lips bar, Bedside Bar, White Hart pub ?
Bum boat back from HK island to Kowloon after Star Ferry had gone to bed ?
Detachments are not what they used to be.......

[Nimman]

Rickshaw races from the Brit Club to Bugis St

The toilets in the centre of Bugis

Keema roti at the Tengah village macan stalls after a night in the General/Tengah bars

The shift of 8 bods on the early part of a night out paying to watch a 'dirty film' in downtown HongKong and ending up on the 6th floor of a block of flats watching a cine 8 movie in the bedroom with the chinamans family of ten sitting in the room next door

Downtown in HongKong after a mess dining in night still in mess dress and 5 of us getting back to mess just in time for saturday lunch drinks next day

Watching a Wessex trying to take off at Sharjah after we had just loaded the cabin with crates of beer and stim for the guys up country, blades fully coned up no lift, AQM throw off crates until the kite manages to lift off

Cant remember the number of times that we sang 'Leaving on a jet plane' at gozhome doos at the Sharjah YMCA, rugby, football, Kunja clubs

The open air cinema at Sharjah, must have seen a film every 2 nights during the tour there

Handed an SLR and 2 loaded mags for a weekend trip to Firq/Saiq, first time used no instruction

Back seat ride in a Jag t/bird along the East German border, amazed at the number of rocket sites along the way, and finding out that I would need a bit of practice to be a pilot

Deci rounabout parties and Sqn handover nights/fights in the Nuraghe Club

Punch up between an OC 'Crusader Sqn' Jags and a taking over OC NAS Harriers in the Deci O's block over the burning of said OC NAS hat and the use of the block piano. A good night had by all, plenty of Oxygen used prior to next days sorties.

When being on Nimrods meant eastabouts, westabouts, Mardets, dets to Lajes, Ascension, FIs, Capetown, all over US, Puerto Rico, Curacao, Greenwood, Summerside, Comox, Toronto, Gander, Kef, Bodo, Andoya, Nimes, Valkenberg, Nordhorn, Gib, Malta, Cyprus, Sardinia, Sigonella, Bahrein, Doha, Seeb, Diego Garcia, India, Columbo, Gan, Tengah, Butterworth, NZ and Australia to name a few + add in different air shows.

[Al R]

• There being no escape from the heat or cold.
• Me and MicK sleeping out at -29 to trial new sleeping bags for (as was) SCRDE.
• The smell of gently heating spilt Keo.
• Limassol wine festivals.. all you can drink for £2.
• The awful cloying smell of Kokkers the next morning.
• Forgetting all of that 10 hours later.
• Wittering village when it had a petrol station!! Grr.
• Sneaking something into the pile of papers in Central Registry when SROs used to be stapled by hand, asking for volunteers to apply for duties as a houseboy in the COs house. Male only applicants were asked to have ".. a cheeky smile, a nice bott and be willing to stay for sleepovers in the event of late entertaining". The **** really hit the roof over that one. Doing the same asking for volunteers to trial out sharing spare rooms in MQs when the blocks were full and explaining to Scalies that rooms would be requisitioned and recompense at the MoD war scaling contingency scale of £1.50 (or something) would be granted. Yes, Mr RAFP.. it was me.
• Over the course of an 8 day OP, carving a spendid hunting scene (with horses and hounds) into the (spare) wooden stock of my SLR and telling the army that we were positively encouraged to personalise our kit.
• being aghast when said squaddie told me the next month at the same handover that he had handed his papers in to rebadge.
• Yamma Clark falling asleep and us clipping a swastika into the crown of his head. Him not realising until (WO) Brian Deeley saw it. He was made to wear a tin helmet everywhere until it grew back (he wasn't allowed to shave his head because of the sun).
• Brian Deeley telling is he was going to run for Mayor of Chipnam and ban the RAF Regiment from town. He died a couple of years after leaving.
• Brian Deeley banning me from EVERY single trading establishment whether it be a pub or shop on the island of Cyprus, with the exception of Tip Top toyshop in town. I liked him.
• C Flt sitting on the fuselage of a Lightning and being told off.
• Covertly mounting an OP once and every night, at 2330, being treated to a bird stripping off with curtains wide open.
• A WRAF interpreter TELLING me that she didn't join up 'for this kind of ****' when being told (in N Bosnia) to get a grip and clean her rifle.
• Her limp wristed gimp of a boss having a go at me for telling her to get a grip and telling me that she was a 'really good girl' who's job was to interprete, and not play 'silly military buggers'.
• The battle group commander sacking both of them .
• Working with the Cav.. always a pleasure.
• Calling a Cav Cpl of the Horse 'bud'.
• Military field cooking, unsurpassed anywhere. I don't know why a few of them don't get together and start a good old fashioned nosh house selling quality beer and show food. Theme it, buy a load of 12x12s and make it an experience.
• A Guards officer having a go at the Regt in Brunei, and promptly ND'ing a life round into his foot.
• STICKY CHOCY PUDDING AT CATTERICK. (swoon)
• When the first WRAF was posted into Catterick.
• Running the Recce Section and Budgie and mounting an Action Man on the front of one of the stripped down Landies. Budgie named him Recon Ron. The lads found a Barbie doll for the other wagon and she was named Recce Beckie. If you look closely, in the sqn fot, you can see Ron and Beckie getting down to it in a most imaginative position.
• All in Stew.
• The STINK from the BVs in the back of the armour. That boiled water could ever smell so bad is still beyond my comprehension.

[Gainesy]

Limassol wine festivals

How on earth had I forgotten that?

[clicker]

Gainsey, that proves you must have had a good time!

[woodring]

2/6 pence was the entrance fee last time time I went.
That price included a small glass and an empty small bottle.
The drill was to go to one of the stands pour a taster into your glass and when you find one you like , hand over your bottle to be filled with your
choice.Then a stroll round the park with a kebab until you needed a refill.
Always keep your last bottle for the taxi ride home.

[mystic_meg]

Compo sausages.... lovely!

[MReyn24050]

Compo sausages.... lovely! Followed by Cheese possessed! However I really remember buying hamburgers in the Bamboo Bay Restaurant in Regents Street West Belize City and feeding them to the catfish in the river under the verranda.

[Airborne Aircrew]

You know... I can't believe we have come this far into the thread and, having had the recurring theme of smells, not have had anyone mention some of the more "succulent" things about the Belize City Market.

Ahhh... The Belize City Market... It was something of a right of passage for each new chap. Here follows a few "snapshots"...

1. Flt Lt Jamie D***** walking towards the market meets a local gent coming the other way. Now, Jamie is a... errr... portly chap and the local is skinny, probably high on ganja and has the biggest boom box ever on his shoulder blasting reggae. Jamie, being the cool dude he is, flips a peace sign at the local and says "heeeey maaan...". The local stops, looks Jamie up and down and says "Heeey, it's the mighty whitey"... and walks on...
2. The navigator who lasted only about a minute in the market before saying "fcuk this", putting one hand over his mouth and running for the door.
3. Watching a lady order something and seeing the stall owner lift the "tablecloth", pull out a live turtle, cutting off a fin, wrapping it in yesterday's paper and putting the turtle back under the table...
4. The fishmongers were by the river and would throw the fish guts etc. into it. The water would boil with the catfish but it was so black and dirty that you could never see them.
5. Looking at the meat market for the first time and wondering why the meat looked so dark until I realized that all you needed to do was to wave your hand over the meat and the flies would leave...
6. There was the time when there was the drunk in the meat market unconscious on the floor in a huge puddle of his own puke... and everyone just stepping over him.

Belize City had it's "fun times" too:-

1. The river was so dirty standing orders had you go directly to sick bay if you fell in. Andy "Pigpen" P**** fell in once I think and was four days in sick bay. But at the swing bridge on Saturdays the kids stand on the parapet of the bridge asking for quarters... It's customary to throw them in the river. The river that is so dirty you can't see the catfish feeding on the surface. The kid always comes up with the quarter.
2. Sqn Ldr B******'s wife is in Belize for a visit and we are all walking through the City to the Chateau Caribbean. A bum starts bothering us. Usually I wasn't particularly polite to them which was effective at getting rid of them but with the boss's missus there that was a bit of an issue. After 300 yards of his woffling on about how poor he was I said "You know, you're a fcuking annoying little cnut. Why don't you fcuk off?" in a voice I thought was sufficiently quiet that she wouldn't hear. The boss, who was right next to her says "Nice Ginge..." with sufficient sarcasm to let me know he wasn't pleased when Mrs. Boss pipes up "I don't know, I was wondering why he was being so bloody restrained"... Cracked me up... and the bum left
3. Sitting on the last bus home at the swing bridge waiting for it to leave and seeing a mate I went down with earlier in the day get on the bus as white as a sheet... He'd just been mugged at gunpoint...
4. Always wearing a long sleeved shirt when you go to town at night. Not because SSO's said you should for mossie protection but because you hide the majority of your cash in the rolled up sleeve and have only $5US in your pocket.
5. Having the local come alongside while you're wandering around asking if you want to buy some Black Coral jewellery which is rare and therefore illegal. They proceed to show you some beautiful, highly polished dolphins, angelfish, ships etc. in black coral. You feign interest in a particular piece and barter for a better price. When the price is fixed you pull out your lighter and ask if you can test it while looking in his eyes. See, they spend a lot of time and effort making these "Black Coral" artifacts out of the old black plastic steering wheels... If it doesn't melt it's the very valuable Black Coral. If it does...
6. Walking through the city alongside a concrete open sewer. The homes beside it hung over above the sewer and, though I hadn't noticed it at the time each house had a nice round hole over the sewer. Suddenly, right next to me was a big splash like a large fish jumping. I look up to see that largest female nether regions through the hole doing things I had never witnessed from that angle before nor wish to again...

PS: For the Puma crews partaking in this... Does anyone know where Flt Sgt Dick B*****, who was the crewman trainer in the mid to late 80's on 33 Sqn is/what happened to him...

[charliegolf]

Dick had a brainectomy at Cranwell. Took 20 mins- not much to remove.

CG

[Airborne Aircrew]

Oh Noooo.... So you are saying that the phrase:-

Dick B***** before he dicks you

has real meaning...

[Wiretensioner]

he now likes to be called Dickie. Knew him when he was just Bucko when we were both on the OCU in the early eighties. Fine chap

[PlasticCabDriver]

And still on 33 Sqn!

[trap one]

I remember in the Cinema At Airport Camp in Belize watching the uncut version of Dogs of War. When the Merc Climbs in and swims to the swing bridge to open it, the corus of groans and moans was deafing.

Or rushing back from work to get out of camp as being out on the streets during "curfew" was "strickly forbidden". The army weren't allowed out of camp, the RAF spent the hours of the "curfew" locked in Raul's or one of the other dens of pleasure.

[Airborne Aircrew]

And still on 33 Sqn!

Noo... He left and came back, right??? Talk about getting in a rut.

I remember an ongoing argument with him over the effectiveness of a door mounted GPMG. The first time we fired on it was on a sea range so apart from the high number of splashes it really isn't all that impressive. He said that the door mount was a toy and I argued it's effectiveness from an ex-rock's experience and the fact you have the benefit of shooting down on your enemy. The second time we fired it was a sea range too... He still claimed it was a toy and I still tried to tell him that he wasn't seeing it's true power.

The last time we fired it was over land with fig. 11 and 12 targets. I'll never forget his face the first time we brought fire to bear over land. The rounds kicked up all manner of dirt, rocks and ripped the undergrowth to pieces. After a nice 20-30 round burst you could see the world of sh1t you had just brought down accurately on a small area around a target. But I remember most what he said, (simply because getting Dick to back down was almost as hard as getting me to... ). "You were right Ginge... that's quite impressive"...

Then there was the time he came bowling in the 33 crew room and says to the Sqn Ldr he's about to go flying with "Sir, is there something you know that I don't" only to be greeted with the reply "Dick, there's an awful lot I know that you don't"...

But the best one ever was in the Sgt's Mess at some "do". All the crewmen are stood in a circle with the customary beer. Some have their wives and Dick is there having just returned from 2 months in Belize. Niel E****'s wife Sue was pregnant when he left and had had the baby while he was in Belize. She's stood there in her best party frock across the circle from Dick who pipes up "So, Sue, when are you due?". That was a silence you could have cut with a knife. Everyone cringed and looked to see what her reaction would be. She started to scowl and looked at Neil and we all waited, ready to dive for cover. She promptly burst out laughing to the relief of all... Dick was always the luckiest...

He also did one of the greatest services to flying the Puma helicopter, he was the one who got a certain crewman that I had been through Biggin Hill, AAITC, Finningley, Shawbury and 240 OCU with thrown off Puma's. I remember thinking at Biggin Hill that if the Air Force is looking for him they won't want me... He was a continual screw-up but somehow he always managed to scrape through on second and third chances. Finally he got to Belize and Dick sat LHS on his check ride BGS. IIRC, just after taking off from Rideau to drive back to APC, (90 miles/45 mins), Dick and the Captain noted and dealt with a HYD1 warning, (the light remained on). When the a/c was but a few minutes from APC the crewman pipes up in his inimitable glasgow accent, (I wasn't there but I can still hear it), "Sir, we have a HYD1 caption". Dick had him on the next VC-10 home and I gather that once he got back to 230 Sqn he was shipped straight off to the C-130 OCU at Lyneham - never to be heard from or seen again.

Dick, I salute you...

[Al R]

I have some footage of (I have hours of footage, come to think of it) the 33 det in NE Turkey near the Kurdish border. Mick and I fired the GPMG in the door when they were evaluating a bag to collect ejected cases and links. MALM Saxby was the loadie and (I think) Stubbsy was flying. If anyone from 33 is here, who was there, that was the det when the storm hit the flying site and decimated it, and everyone came down with the ****s. Not so much the RAF Odiham det, more the RAF Imodium det.

Talking of which.. and a neat segue to boot;

I remember when we went through a phase of unstitching Stubbsy's flying clothing in Norway and restitching it a mm or so tighter at a time. I can't remember how long the diet lasted.

[dwhcomputers]

Sitting on the balcony at Changi Hospital after lights out listening to England win the World Cup on the BBC World Service and Matron not being amused when we all cheered at the end.
Playing Volleyball on the Court between the Officers and Sgts Mess at 2am Christmas morning at Kutching drinking Tiger
The Orderly Officer switching the floodlights out just after 2 am saying go to bed some of us want to sleep.
The deep Australian voice of W/C Blue Atherton the CO telling the O.O. to switch the F**King lights back on.

[PlasticCabDriver]

Airborne Aircrew,

DB still posts on here from time to time...

[ExRAFRadar]

Class thread

Remember when Sky Shadow was 'secret' and bloody GR1 used to stooge up and down LFA13 being tracked by Bomb Scoring Kit.

I used to grab a copy of Air Clues and sit in bog while some poor SAC and Cpl used to lift the pen on the bomb plot table to the cry of "Signal on" (or something like it)

Used to go on for what felt like hours