RAF VC10 - Great Memories

[SRENNAPS]

Shouldn't that be 'But of course I was a cpl?

That made me chuckle. Of course it should have been

Thank you

[dagama]

Quote:

I was only a Cpl

When I was a Jnr Magician in Base Hangar, Cpls were GOD. Then I became a Cpl and Sgts were GODs. I never became a GOD, but went off for a blood transfusion!

[SRENNAPS]

When I was in Base Hangar we had a lad who had taken 20 odd years to go from SAC to JT. After a further 10 years he became a Cpl, he was literally older than my really old first Chief. When this lad did become a Cpl he became a nightmare and threatened to charge all of us within a few days. Fortunately the real God called Sgt sorted him out.

[spanners123]

My 1st posting after my Mechs course was to LSS 'C'. Although I only spent a year on the VC-10, I had a great time. I seem to remember my FS didn't like U/S frames sitting on the pan in ball and roller fit, and insisted on them being re-rolled for pax, either though the required fit was still unknown. Just as well we had plenty of riggers on shift

[haltonapp]

What other aeroplane has the RAF ever had, that has visited so many places in the world? I personally went to Ulan Bator in one, and Novosibirsk on more than one occasion!

[Davita]

I remember a trip to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with Prime Minister Wilson on board who was meeting with Haile Selassie. The airport is over 7.000ft elevation.
I recall having to 'climb' the cabin altitude to land.
The protocol was the UK PM did not want to stand on Ethiopian soil so Haile Selassie came on board for lunch.
We had a problem starting the APU as, I think....it was out of its height limits. We had to tweak it's FCU to get it working.....lucky we had a Crew Chief on the trip as the PM was an angry man and didn't want any ground equipment to touch our VC10.
We got the APU started and I wound the Aircon and the recirc fans to max to keep the A/C cool.

Maybe some GE can comment if I have my details correct....it was a long time ago.

[NutLoose]

Spanners, I was LSS A shift..

Davita.....
Prepping a VIP for Maggie, the last finishing bits was the little lightweight "golf balls" that covered the fittings for folding the hat racks up. Unfortunately a leg had broken, we had no spares and the jet was about to depart, sticking it up with a lump of Bodge tape I told the boss, ” it'll do a trip".... it did, though the second trip from Heathrow it fell off and hit Maggie on the top of the head, I remember the Boss telling me in muffled tones.... How we laughed.

[Dan Gerous]

First trip in a 10, was a training sortie at Lossie, when a tannoy call went out for volunteers for a flight. Massively over subscribed. I recall we covered a large part of Scotland during it. Memories are passing over Tiree and looking down on one of 202's Whirlwinds doing some training off the coast near Lossie. The Cpl from the bay I worked in, was asked to play an awkward passenger, which he seemed to enjoy. My most memorable trip was coming back from Ascension after hostilities ceased. There were a few sailors on board who had come from down South. As soon as the seatbelt signs went off, they crashed out across the seats or on the floor between the seat rows, and slept most of the way back. I imagined it must have been a while since any of them had had a decent sleep. Got a few trips on them during my time in the RAF, and always enjoyed them. Still looks futuristic now, despite their age.

[Davita]

Quote
Davita.....
Prepping a VIP for Maggie, the last finishing bits was the little lightweight "golf balls" that covered the fittings for folding the hat racks up. Unfortunately a leg had broken, we had no spares and the jet was about to depart, sticking it up with a lump of Bodge tape I told the boss, ” it'll do a trip".... it did, though the second trip from Heathrow it fell off and hit Maggie on the top of the head, I remember the Boss telling me in muffled tones.... How we laughed.
Unquote

That's funny....I guess that was the only way she could get CROWNED!

Maggie came after my VC10 VIP F/Es tour but I kept in touch with a colleague who replaced me and he told me of a tale of when he went to take a pee he caught Maggie on the can with...as this Scotsman said "Her knickers doon!' She had forgotten to snub the door.
Not a pretty sight I imagine, and enough to put the crew off the baloney sandwhich they usually fed us.

[Union Jack]

Not a pretty sight I imagine,

Oh dear, Davita, that's not very nice - I suspect that none of us looks that wonderful on the throne, possibly not even you - or me!

Jack

[NutLoose]

I was de-icing one up on the apron, you normally squirted all the controls and wings etc first, but left the fuselage until the pax's were safetly ensconced on board to stop it dripping on them as they boarded, having watched all the pax on I was given the signal to let rip, starting at the front I bounced it off the fuselage from my position just aft of the stb wing giving it a good coating...
Unbeknown to any of us there was a VIP flying that day, some General or other who having awaited the multitude to get aboard and be seated climbed the steps to be hit with the full flow of a de-ice truck bouncing off the fuselage... his suit was apparently not a pretty sight and one felt that inter service cooperation had taken a backward step that day... I believe there was a marked sound of contained laughter when he entered the cabin from the rest of the pax


.

[ICM]

Ah yes, those screened-off front seat VIP fits! I suspect they might always have been in occasional use but, with the demise of 216 Sqn's Comets in the mid-70s, they became increasingly common, both East and Westbound. Their existence could make life awkward for the Cabin Crew when senior personages, not quite so senior as the chap in front, took offence at a difference in treatment accorded to them. They were sufficiently frequent in the later-70s that no attempt could be made to ensure a 'VIP crew' flew every leg of a HK slip, say, as that would have been quite impractical from a scheduling point of view. Proper VVIP/VIP flights were those scheduled as such and given a 1000-series task number.

[haltonapp]

I did a NATO VIP trip from Brussels to Lisbon, the seating plan, full pax fit, put the big NATO VIP at the front of the aircraft, but he was not happy looking at the back of all those heads and insisted he sat at the very back of the aircraft, near the motors! Did we chuckle!

[Agatha]

.....and great memories of the VC10 are still being generated.....

The youngest ever members of the RAF Association, rafa YOUTH, had a VIP experience on 2nd August at RAF Brize Norton with opportunities to fly the VC10 Simulator, tour around and then have lunch on the C17, view the Voyager and have an all-round amazing day.

Here’s what they thought about their VC10 experience........ rafa YOUTH Prizewinners RAF Brize Norton 2nd August 2013 - YouTube

and it clearly doesn't get much better than that - huge thanks to all at RAF Brize Norton for such amazing support!!

[thing]

Did a few 10 trips but the one that stands out in my mind was returning from Belize. I had flown out there via Lyneham and Gander in a Herc; it took three days as I remember... The 10 was sheer luxury in comparison returning via Bermuda.

Not only that but four of us had a very tight connection with a trooper from Luton to Gut. Brize bless their socks stuck us on a 10 and flew the four of us to Luton.

[NutLoose]

I must say the inflight catering on the C17 seems to be a vast improvement over the buttie box we got on the Wessex, Puma, Chinook, Herc, VC10 in my day Agatha

[NutLoose]

Walking past the Skip I find a Cpl airframe chappie going through all the foor detritus removed from the VC10, querying what he was doing and if he wanted lunch i would buy him one, he points out that the buttie boxes each contained a Shiphams meat spread jar and each jar label had an offer on it, 4 or 5 labels for £1 and there were 156 meal boxes in here from one jet alone, which in the late 80's equated to about £30, he in the end sent in and recieved about the equivalent of his months pay before the offer ended.

[Shiny10]

Logic doesn't work

The friday Dulles always had a spare 'frame' (that's how they talked). All hell broke lose when the primary went U/S two hours before departure. The Flt Sgt panicked and told me to generate another frame for the Primary slot, I suggested that we use the 'Spare' as the Primary, his reply - "If we do that we won't have a spare". He was serious.

As a GE we nightstopped Gut on the way to Ascension. I had a trainee who did the refuel on landing and then panicked as the figures didn't add up. I dipped all the tanks to find that the 8 gauges were under-reading. I telephoned Brize to get the Calibration Kit shipped out, the reply was, "You can't have it as we only have one and we may need it".

I can laugh about it now.

[haltonapp]

Taking Ghurkas from HK to Seoul, 120 Ghurka curries from Dairy Farm in the oven brought tears to your eyes! Calgary to Keflavik, soldiers just off the range, gear up, their boots off, cigarettes lit, brought tears to your eyes! I know which was preferable!

[ICM]

The VC10's pax cabin for Ex Medicine Man flights to/from Calgary was a sight to behold, with almost all spare space filled with soldiers' personal kit. One year when aircraft were slipping through Brize outbound from Gutersloh, two headcounts with the clicker showed a passenger missing. To resolve things, pax were offloaded and a quick parade and count were held on the ramp - all present and correct. It then emerged that one chap in a window seat had got back on board and immediately burrowed under a pile of mukluks etc for a kip and completely vanished from sight.