Gaining An R.A.F Pilots Brevet In WW II
7000 not out! Warm congratulations to Danny, on behalf of all his forerunners, for everything he has done to keep this amazing thread so vibrantly alive after all these years.
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The Men Who Went To Warsaw
Danny as usual with me a Tangent, but first 7000 Up - Brilliant - Could you have played for Yorkshire!!!! 
Now my Tangent, as I've mentioned on here before my late father during WWII eventually made it onto OPs as an RAF(VR) Air Gunner with 34 & then 31 Sqds SAAF, one of his claims to fame was a 'bit part' in the Warsaw Airlift of late 1944
Have just found out that the Rear Gunner of his trip on 10/11 Sept 1944, a fellow RAF(VR) A/G one Sgt Ken Todd is still alive and well here in the UK
For me this is Fantastic News
PZU - Out of Africa (Retired)
Now my Tangent, as I've mentioned on here before my late father during WWII eventually made it onto OPs as an RAF(VR) Air Gunner with 34 & then 31 Sqds SAAF, one of his claims to fame was a 'bit part' in the Warsaw Airlift of late 1944
Have just found out that the Rear Gunner of his trip on 10/11 Sept 1944, a fellow RAF(VR) A/G one Sgt Ken Todd is still alive and well here in the UK
For me this is Fantastic News
PZU - Out of Africa (Retired)
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Warsaw Airlift
pzu,
No (didn't like Cricket at school - they throw hard balls at you !!). The Warsaw '44 Airlift was a sad story; the Russians hampering our relief operations in every way (and I believe half the drop fell into German hands, anyway).
Fantastic news indeed ! Now if you can get in touch with your Sgt Ken Todd, try and get him aboard here where he belongs. Tempt him with this (and Google "Pilot Officer Prune" or "TeeEmm"). On this Thread we could do with all the help we can get to keep it going. Thanks, Danny.
Thanks,
Danny.
No (didn't like Cricket at school - they throw hard balls at you !!). The Warsaw '44 Airlift was a sad story; the Russians hampering our relief operations in every way (and I believe half the drop fell into German hands, anyway).
Fantastic news indeed ! Now if you can get in touch with your Sgt Ken Todd, try and get him aboard here where he belongs. Tempt him with this (and Google "Pilot Officer Prune" or "TeeEmm"). On this Thread we could do with all the help we can get to keep it going. Thanks, Danny.
Remarks that get,one expelled from the
Air Gunners' Union
Air Gunners' Union
You never see anything on these trips, so I always take a book into the turret ...
Training ? No, you see, I'm at an operational squadron now . . How was I to know there was anything wrong with the
turret: the D.I's always done by the armourer .. .
I never make a testing burst we have to clean our own
guns...
I couldn't tell the range, as it was a Condor and we'd only practised with 109's and 110's ...
Well, you see, nobody knew what it was, as we were all having our sandwiches at the time ...
We'd already sighted the coast, so I wasn't in the turret at the time .
I didn't bother much about it, as it had RAF markings on it...
Training ? No, you see, I'm at an operational squadron now . . How was I to know there was anything wrong with the
turret: the D.I's always done by the armourer .. .
I never make a testing burst we have to clean our own
guns...
I couldn't tell the range, as it was a Condor and we'd only practised with 109's and 110's ...
Well, you see, nobody knew what it was, as we were all having our sandwiches at the time ...
We'd already sighted the coast, so I wasn't in the turret at the time .
I didn't bother much about it, as it had RAF markings on it...
Thanks,
Danny.
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Gaining An R.A.F. Pilots Brevet In WW11
Congratulations Danny. I'm still keeping a watching brief. Purely what I was used to, but if I was back flying low level over the sea, I would rather have a wheel than the Airbus pistol grip. Kinloss looks quiet after a quick run around outside the wire. Runway looks fine from the road!! Ah well, we can still hope.
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Old Fuddy-Duddy has his two cents' worth,
Ormeside,
Glad to hear from you (when one of our 90+ gang suddenly goes quiet, you tend to suspect the worst !) Agree about the Airbus (and all of that ilk), although my experience in them is limited to serf-class down the back-end of a 320. But from all I hear here, I would shrink back in terror from LL over the sea (or anywhere else, for that matter) in a thing whose natural habitat is FL300 or above, and which (by all accounts), I don't fly, but rather it flies me. I suppose you're only there to reassure the pax (poor deluded souls) that there is some human input into this devil's brew. (REMEMBER: A BLACK BOX HAS NO FEAR OF DEATH).
What would you want a wheel for ? What was the matter with the good old stick ? With unlimited power assistance, you could have it (say) cigarette-size, foldaway, in its proper place from time immemorial, (between your knees), under your lunch tray. Hydraulic power and its back-up fails (whoever heard of such a thing ?), either you put second dickey onto hydraulic handpump and tell him to pump for his life, or entrust your soul to its Maker and your body to Martin-Baker (pity about the pax). No bang seat ? Ah, well.
Instinctly recoil from the side-stick idea, but it seems to work. But wouldn't it have been better to couple the sticks together mechanically (as had always been done since the Wright brothers). How can you instruct when you can't feel what your stude is doing with his pole ? (and I don't want any Rabelaisian comment !).
And it would have avoided the hideous situation in the AF447 tragedy (and I impute blame to no one on board that dreadful night), where it's all going pear-shaped, P3 has the stick pulled hard back into his guts, P1 and P2 are running around desperately in the dark and chaos, and they can't see or (more vitally) feel, what P3's doing. So a perfectly good aircraft, flying happily in the cruise, with only an iced-up pitot head (was pitot-head heater u/s, then ?), and 228 souls on board (RIP all), stalls at FL380, and goes all the way down into a freezing sea, and no one can stop it. (And, but for a miracle of marine salvage, no one would ever know why).
Now I see why the wise men in my Arnold Flight School made me fly my first 60 hours without an ASI (as I'd never been off the ground before, I felt no pain at all). Don't think Orville and Wilbur had one either, and they made out all right at Kittihawk, too.
Rant over, standby for incoming.
Cheers, Danny. (Armchair warrior par excellence).
Glad to hear from you (when one of our 90+ gang suddenly goes quiet, you tend to suspect the worst !) Agree about the Airbus (and all of that ilk), although my experience in them is limited to serf-class down the back-end of a 320. But from all I hear here, I would shrink back in terror from LL over the sea (or anywhere else, for that matter) in a thing whose natural habitat is FL300 or above, and which (by all accounts), I don't fly, but rather it flies me. I suppose you're only there to reassure the pax (poor deluded souls) that there is some human input into this devil's brew. (REMEMBER: A BLACK BOX HAS NO FEAR OF DEATH).
What would you want a wheel for ? What was the matter with the good old stick ? With unlimited power assistance, you could have it (say) cigarette-size, foldaway, in its proper place from time immemorial, (between your knees), under your lunch tray. Hydraulic power and its back-up fails (whoever heard of such a thing ?), either you put second dickey onto hydraulic handpump and tell him to pump for his life, or entrust your soul to its Maker and your body to Martin-Baker (pity about the pax). No bang seat ? Ah, well.
Instinctly recoil from the side-stick idea, but it seems to work. But wouldn't it have been better to couple the sticks together mechanically (as had always been done since the Wright brothers). How can you instruct when you can't feel what your stude is doing with his pole ? (and I don't want any Rabelaisian comment !).
And it would have avoided the hideous situation in the AF447 tragedy (and I impute blame to no one on board that dreadful night), where it's all going pear-shaped, P3 has the stick pulled hard back into his guts, P1 and P2 are running around desperately in the dark and chaos, and they can't see or (more vitally) feel, what P3's doing. So a perfectly good aircraft, flying happily in the cruise, with only an iced-up pitot head (was pitot-head heater u/s, then ?), and 228 souls on board (RIP all), stalls at FL380, and goes all the way down into a freezing sea, and no one can stop it. (And, but for a miracle of marine salvage, no one would ever know why).
Now I see why the wise men in my Arnold Flight School made me fly my first 60 hours without an ASI (as I'd never been off the ground before, I felt no pain at all). Don't think Orville and Wilbur had one either, and they made out all right at Kittihawk, too.
Rant over, standby for incoming.
Cheers, Danny. (Armchair warrior par excellence).
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A Funny Thing happened to me on my way to edit my Post #7006 last night.
I'd already had no end of trouble trying to tidy it up a bit (get the spacing right, delete one of the two "Cheers, Danny" etc), because the excerpt and pic from TeeEmm had become increasingly "touchy" if approached, and would vanish in a puff of cybersmoke if you ventured too close.
At last I gave it up and let it go as it was. Later, there came to mind another "Remark that gets you Expelled"....." from my own experience at 1580 Calibration Flight, RAF Cholaveram, early '45.
Quoth one of our AGs in the Mess one lunchtime: "Bloody Pilots run their tanks dry, and I get dysentery !!" * To which the massed ranks of TWLOTA riposted: "We'll have you thrown out of the Union !"
* (well he might, if we were 40 miles out over a shark-infested Indian Ocean. But no sweat, select another full tank and the VV would always pick up again after a short time and a bit of wobble-pump).
Now I put this in as an EDIT at the end, and it went off OK (I swear it did ! - I saw it). Today it's gone. ???. Should I have said "Bl##dy", perhaps ? (I thought we'd got past that a while ago with "Pygmalion"). Any ideas, anybody ?
D.
I'd already had no end of trouble trying to tidy it up a bit (get the spacing right, delete one of the two "Cheers, Danny" etc), because the excerpt and pic from TeeEmm had become increasingly "touchy" if approached, and would vanish in a puff of cybersmoke if you ventured too close.
At last I gave it up and let it go as it was. Later, there came to mind another "Remark that gets you Expelled"....." from my own experience at 1580 Calibration Flight, RAF Cholaveram, early '45.
Quoth one of our AGs in the Mess one lunchtime: "Bloody Pilots run their tanks dry, and I get dysentery !!" * To which the massed ranks of TWLOTA riposted: "We'll have you thrown out of the Union !"
* (well he might, if we were 40 miles out over a shark-infested Indian Ocean. But no sweat, select another full tank and the VV would always pick up again after a short time and a bit of wobble-pump).
Now I put this in as an EDIT at the end, and it went off OK (I swear it did ! - I saw it). Today it's gone. ???. Should I have said "Bl##dy", perhaps ? (I thought we'd got past that a while ago with "Pygmalion"). Any ideas, anybody ?
D.
Rant over, standby for incoming.
Cheers, Danny. (Armchair warrior par excellence).
Cheers, Danny. (Armchair warrior par excellence).
Thou dost not rant nor run away at the mouth, but fill us who gather here around the fountain in the village square, with
wonder, leavened by the humourous recall of days of yore.
Standby for incoming? Old mate had had enough after a few weeks disastrous marriage. As he walked out the door she cried. . Where do you think you're going? . . .. Get fxxxxxx. Letter following.
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A little off topic but here's a fine map of Scapa Flow (marked MOST SECRET) and its WW2 defences together with the sites of sunken ships, crashed aircraft, etc
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Well, if we're doing maps ... here, from a dusty corner of my archives, is a set of diagrams of the main Malta airfields [as they were in 1942] to show the taxi tracks and dispersal points. The base document was a detailed survey of the bombing of Malta in WW2, examining the effects after plotting where all the bombs fell.
No wonder they needed follow-me vehicles to lead aircraft to their dispersals, especially as the Germans and Italians spent a lot of time and effort re-arranging the geography on a regular basis.
LUQA and SAFI
HAL FAR
TA'KALI
No wonder they needed follow-me vehicles to lead aircraft to their dispersals, especially as the Germans and Italians spent a lot of time and effort re-arranging the geography on a regular basis.
LUQA and SAFI
HAL FAR
TA'KALI
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Better Late Than Never.
A final footnote to the National 70th Anniversity Celebrations from our eponymous Founder (shamelessly looted from TeeEmm/Wiki)
VEE EMM DAY
Prune and his "accomplices" Flying Officer Fixe, Sergeant Straddle, Sergeant Winde, Sergeant Backtune, WAAF Winsum (who later became Mrs Prune) and, of course, Binder, his dog.
Note that it is a five-man crew (Wellington ?), and that two are RAAF (dark blues).
Danny42C.
VEE EMM DAY
Prune and his "accomplices" Flying Officer Fixe, Sergeant Straddle, Sergeant Winde, Sergeant Backtune, WAAF Winsum (who later became Mrs Prune) and, of course, Binder, his dog.
Note that it is a five-man crew (Wellington ?), and that two are RAAF (dark blues).
Danny42C.
The Scapa maps took me back a bit. In the early seventies we took a couple of Pumas up to Ness Battery. This was a barracks used by an Artillery unit guarding the westerly approach to Scapa Flow. It's new use was as an exercise centre for the Army but the dining room still had all the murals painted on the walls by the wartime occupants. Ther main theme seemed to be small cottages with rose archs over the front door; something not to be found in the Orkneys.
The guns had gone but the magazines, empty, were much as they had been during the war. Double walls of concrete and even the blast shutters, designed to stop a hit on the gun position effecting the ammunition, were still working.
There is a photograph of a Puma, not me, perched on the top of the Old Man of Hoy. I had a look at it but I didn't let there be too much weight on the wheels in case this million year old structure plummetted into the sea. I would not have been very popular.
On the Island of Hoy there was several abandoned buildings somewhere near the centre. They were connected with the main fleet fuel store and it was in the process of being emptied. The fuel oil was kept in an underground complex and I had a wander down the tunnel for a couple of hundred yards then I was chased out for not having a safety helmet.
It is common for Her Majesty's aerial conveyances to visit parts of the UK where exceptional standards of food can be purchased. Machranhanish for kippers, Rathlan Island for lobsters, Channel Islands for duty free but we found one in Hoy for lamb.
The Orkneys produce more lamb than they can eat so once a year a ferry full of livestock trucks all baa baaing away departs for Aberdeen. We were fortunate in meeting a farmer who had some that had missed the boat, as it were, and were available at a very advantageous rate. A few phone calls back to Odiham and we had a group of buyers. Several lambs fell over and a butcher packed them into the requisite number of freezer packs and we punched oft daun sauf.
It was a long way back to Odiham and we had a planned night stop at Leuchers. A bottle of Orkney malt persuaded the NCO i/c airmans mess to put them in their refrigeraters overnight and they were in excellent condition and ready for the freezer at Odiham.
Any sort of mess function, officers or sergeants, would require copious amounts of Deutsche Sekt. We had a CAAP (Components Accelerated Ageing Programme) aircraft that you could take anywhere as long as you burnt off the hours. Gutersloh NAAFI was the obvious choice and certain arrangements may have taken place with them in the portcullis hats.
You cannot do it now. I was on a visit to my old squadron recently and every minute of flying has to be accounted for.
The guns had gone but the magazines, empty, were much as they had been during the war. Double walls of concrete and even the blast shutters, designed to stop a hit on the gun position effecting the ammunition, were still working.
There is a photograph of a Puma, not me, perched on the top of the Old Man of Hoy. I had a look at it but I didn't let there be too much weight on the wheels in case this million year old structure plummetted into the sea. I would not have been very popular.
On the Island of Hoy there was several abandoned buildings somewhere near the centre. They were connected with the main fleet fuel store and it was in the process of being emptied. The fuel oil was kept in an underground complex and I had a wander down the tunnel for a couple of hundred yards then I was chased out for not having a safety helmet.
It is common for Her Majesty's aerial conveyances to visit parts of the UK where exceptional standards of food can be purchased. Machranhanish for kippers, Rathlan Island for lobsters, Channel Islands for duty free but we found one in Hoy for lamb.
The Orkneys produce more lamb than they can eat so once a year a ferry full of livestock trucks all baa baaing away departs for Aberdeen. We were fortunate in meeting a farmer who had some that had missed the boat, as it were, and were available at a very advantageous rate. A few phone calls back to Odiham and we had a group of buyers. Several lambs fell over and a butcher packed them into the requisite number of freezer packs and we punched oft daun sauf.
It was a long way back to Odiham and we had a planned night stop at Leuchers. A bottle of Orkney malt persuaded the NCO i/c airmans mess to put them in their refrigeraters overnight and they were in excellent condition and ready for the freezer at Odiham.
Any sort of mess function, officers or sergeants, would require copious amounts of Deutsche Sekt. We had a CAAP (Components Accelerated Ageing Programme) aircraft that you could take anywhere as long as you burnt off the hours. Gutersloh NAAFI was the obvious choice and certain arrangements may have taken place with them in the portcullis hats.
You cannot do it now. I was on a visit to my old squadron recently and every minute of flying has to be accounted for.
Last edited by Fareastdriver; 14th May 2015 at 09:48. Reason: spelling
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Never heard of it, FZ, but Google was enlightening as always!
The idea of taxying from Luqa to Hal Far is interesting - must have been fun keeping the engine[s] from overheating!
The idea of taxying from Luqa to Hal Far is interesting - must have been fun keeping the engine[s] from overheating!
LUQA - Taxi Instructions
MPNII
A long time ago when I was on 99 Sqn (Britannias) we were tasked to support an army exercise moving troops to Luqa. About four Britannias were used for the move ISTR
Three Brits made it to Luqa successfully (including the one I was on) but the third captained by 99's C.O. of the day landed for some unknown reason at the nearby RN airfield at Hal Far.
It was only when the C.O. asked after landing for taxi instructions (on the Luqa ATC frequency), that Luqa asked for his whereabouts on the airfield as they couldn't see him.
I can't recall we ever got a satisfactory explanation of the error!
A long time ago when I was on 99 Sqn (Britannias) we were tasked to support an army exercise moving troops to Luqa. About four Britannias were used for the move ISTR
Three Brits made it to Luqa successfully (including the one I was on) but the third captained by 99's C.O. of the day landed for some unknown reason at the nearby RN airfield at Hal Far.
It was only when the C.O. asked after landing for taxi instructions (on the Luqa ATC frequency), that Luqa asked for his whereabouts on the airfield as they couldn't see him.
I can't recall we ever got a satisfactory explanation of the error!
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Warmtoast ... we, the runways are similarly orientated [give or take a few degrees] and only about 2.5 miles separated. At least OC 99 wasn't dropping bombs 
PS: The Ta'ali Craft Village occupies a lot of the old Domestic Site: a very nostalgic stroll through rows of declining Nissen huts
PS: The Ta'ali Craft Village occupies a lot of the old Domestic Site: a very nostalgic stroll through rows of declining Nissen huts
We had more than a slack handful of puddle jumpers make approaches to Ta'ali airfield when inbound from Lampedusa - tricky to sort out when the pilot only spoke Italian!! but there were ways and means!