Tankertrashnav

I was once a nav on a Hastings which went to to Stornaway for some spurious reason or other. The real reason was to pick up a load of lobsters for a ball in the Officers Mess at Lindholme*. Much consternation on the way back when several escaped and we were clambering around the back of the aircraft rounding them up. A waste of money? Maybe , but it came out of the month's training allocation, and was a useful landing at an otherwise unfamiliar airfield. A bit like our Coastguard guy, who I well and truly hope comes out of this b**cks with his career intact!

*And fair's fair, a goodly proportion went to the guys on the line when we got back!

Goprdon

I recall that at Stradishall , when it was the home of 1ANS in the late 1960s, the staff navigators , when carrying out continuation training, used often to go to Machrinish. For some reason these exercises were called "Fish Runs".
I also remember Oysters from St. Mawgan. Where the pilot was allegedly briefed to fly at a height where there was sufficient oxygen to keep the little beauties alive.

Trim Stab

There was no shortage of outrage on here when it emerged that MPs were "having some fun" with public money!

Ken Scott

Mr Stab: Hardly the same, the MPs were lining their pockets by cheating on the rules. This chap killed 2 birds with a single stone, so to speak, by getting in some rough field landing training whilst saving the butcher from having to drive to the airport to deliver his steak.

Where was the monetary gain for this pilot? He would've obtained his meat anyway but by his method he actually achieved some valuable training.

I remember the days when people who were detached could use up their monthly SCT allowance on a Fri pm/ Mon am, flying to & from the bases where their families lived in MQs to save them from a long drive home. Was this fraud? Or creative use of an already budgeted for flying allowance that killed 2 birds with one stone? The ac weren't used over the weekend anyway.

We live in sad times....

PTT

Someone please post a rule, order or other instruction stating that he can't do this so long as it qualifies as effective training. Otherwise wind your stiff necks in and stop worrying about what everyone else is doing.

This is precisely the attitude which is killing off the ethos of the military. Toers.

chopabeefer

I think what this crew did is appalling, and they should be strung up like the meat they bought.

When I was on SAR, I NEVER flew Seakings, regularly, to the Lake District for Sandwiches, and certainly NEVER EVER to Carlisle airport for the wonderful Cumberland ring that...err, some b o d y told me they do there.

I absolutely deny ever having flown from MPA to Mt Byron for a Bacon Sarnie, and I am appalled at the suggestion that I may have, several times, used a Seaking to go fishing on W Falkland. Not me.

I also never flew a Wessex from Aldergrove to Skye for a haggis.

Oh, and I never flew a Bell 412 from Shawbury to manston for an ice cream. That would be naughty.

And none of my mates ever did any of those things either.

Shame on that crew - honestly, you can't get the staff these days.

I am definately not on a heli-lanes jolly next week either, in case anyone is wondering, and it will be pure chance if we nightstop and hit Belgo's for some BEvERages.

alwayslookingup

Similar part of the world. In the pre-Sunday sailing/flight days from Stornoway to Ullapool, the Stornoway coastguard would fly to Ullapool to collect the Sunday papers under the guise of a practice flight. This was stopped when the good men of the Stornoway free churches found out what was going on. Travel through necessity is permitted under their creed, but most certainly not for the papers on the Sabbath.

mad_jock

I did summer camp there one year with the TA and a contigent of auld women turned up at the gate on the way to the Kirk and put paid to the RSM's plans for drill practise in the morning and also the PTI's plan for making us run all afternoon.

Even when the flights/ferrys started they is a definate issue with newspapers on a sunday even to this day.

26er

Nothing new in the world! A mate at his wife's request (she who must be obeyed) nipped up to the mess for twenty Players, climbed into his 275 Squadron Sycamore, and dropped them in his own back garden, this being the only way he could get off the station whilst on SAR standby. Chivenor 1957.

tucumseh

I remember the FAA were one down for the Spithead Review in 77 after a pilot decided to use the maintenance check flight to move some furniture to his new station. The four poster cracked a fuel line. The crew were quicker off the mark than us and we caught up as they lurked behind the control tower.

Kiltrash

Who can say that this was not sanctioned by the pilots 'boss' and this makes it O.K.??

Also I regularly see Police, Ambulalance and Fire Engines + full crew getting additional supplies for the local station canteen from their local supermarket

So saving money, time, and supporting crew bonding!

Hope the person doing the diciplinary gives them a smack on the wrist and announces that due process has been followed and the matter is closed

A2QFI

When I was at Akrotiri, in the 60s, I was given a Canberra to fly to UK so the the 10 hours on it, before a scheduled Minor servicing were not "Wasted". We had an engine failure on the approach to Marham (Customs) and while the engine was being changed the O2 system went flat and had to be purged. I think we were away for about 10 days, just to use the hours!

NutLoose

Of course it was a figment of imagination that a Wessex went to Macrahanish to collect some fish, or indeed it was a figment of my imagination that a Puma landed at Newcastle to pick up a motorcycle the pilot had bought on the way back from exercise many moons ago......

Ricorigs

Ok so they fly a nav and land on a field big whoop.

But the fact he went somewhere he could achieve something else at the same time he needs a suspension and dragging through the coals. What a load of cr*p.

I really do worry what this bureaucratic BS and knee jerk media pleasing hierarchy will leave us with.

If it was all approved, had training value and legal what is the issue?

Milo Minderbinder

Presumably thats the point - it wasn't approved and now the supposed training discussion has been raised as a retrospective attempt to evade the issue

Wrathmonk

And isn't this incident a civilian pilot in a civilian helicopter working for a civilian company. Therefore nothing to do with Military Aviation.....

No one in the military would ever do such a thing and anyone who says we do is clearly non-mil and just jealous they didn't make the grade

charliegolf

I imagined that JG, he of the fair hair and ruddy ckeeks, nearly died when the motorbike shop went for a bit of free publicity in (thankfully) the local rag! Nothing adverse came of it. No Pprune back then.

CG

Corrona

what a load of nonsense, if the issue is people wasting public money, than what about all the half baked yet fully sanctioned ideas that that our elected leader come up with...how much did the dome cost?..olympics? PFI's, think tanks...yes there are all kinds of way's to waste public money...some are real story's, some are, as i said at the beginning, nonsense.

Hopefully common sense will prevail and this guy will keep his job.

NutLoose

I never ever used to get lifts up to Northern England with my Motorbike in the back of Chinooks going on leave...

And no Cab ever hover taxied into I think it was Speke to drop someone off going on leave, and even though Speke tried to bill for a landing, they failed, it was pointed out it never landed, simply threw the guy and his bags out a couple of feet in the hover.

And no Crewman ever got himself on a trip in a Puma to Gut, to get the motor for his German made washing machine replaced..

Herod

ROUGH field practice? That's a bl**dy billiard table!