TACEVAL stories

[BEagle]

New readers might wish to note some earlier PPRuNe TACEVAL threads:

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...val-tales.html

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...s-taceval.html

From which I quote a couple of telphonic cock-ups regarding my whereabouts:

In the less tense world of the Vulcan fleet in the late 1970s, we didn't have RAFG-style leave embargos when the Stn Cdr had a feeling in his water that Taceval might be due. We were, of course, required to leave a contact no. if away overnight or on leave....

On one occasion, I was on holiday in Menorca and had left the villa phone no. with our Ops Bod, as per SOPs. In marched the Taceval team, one of whom decided to test the contact procedure. "Service call please", asked the Ops Bod and waited whilst various clicks, buzzes and whirrs ensued.....

"Teesside Grain Company", announced a voice at the other end.

"Is (Flt Lt BEagle) there?"

"Who? Nay lad, never heard of him! CLICK!"

"Hmm, bugger", thought the Ops Bod - "It must have been a wrong number, I'll try again...."

"Hello?"

"(Flt Lt BEagle) please"

"Nay lad, it's the FOO**ING TEESSIDE GRAIN COMPANY! BUGGER OFF, WILL THA'!!"

By now the Taceval umpire was in stitches. We later discovered that the station operator had left off a zero or something...

On another occasion I was staying with a lady friend and her mother in the service flat attached to rather a posh house by the Thames. The owner of which was rather like Margaret Rutherford - and who refused to allow an extension phone in the flat. So when the phone rang in the early hours of yet another exercise, she retorted "Young man, I do not take calls at such times of day. Kindly call back tomorrow!". By which time I was already on my way back to the house 4 of us shared, arriving back at about 1700 to find that they'd been on exercise for the past 36 hours.....

[SOSL]

Beags

You are now, officially, my favourite archivist!!

Rgds SOS

[Motleycallsign]

Reading thru' BEag's reminder thread, I can vouch for Shackman's Marham tale and as I remember Chinooks were banned from Marham for a couple of months after that episode.

[Pontius Navigator]

I rang one number only for the answerer "You don't want to call this number, do you?"

"Who is that?" I asked timorously. "Air Commodore Carver's resident," said his major domo or whoever. I made my apologies and hung up. Didn't you just love the PBX operators?

[sisemen]

Not TACEVAL but a true tale nevertheless.

Scene - Honington in the days when the RAF Police sought to truly trash what little reputation they had by means of the Kit Kat Gang.

One mighty corporal, totally enthused with the lads mags in the crew room of the SSA decides that he might purchase a few of the items to spice up his married life. The parcel duly arrives and wifey opens it. Shock. Horror. He gets a grilling when he arrives back from work and is told to get rid of the disgusting thing. He puts it in his holdall. What to do?

On his next shift - and this is where it starts to become inexplicable - he takes the package out of his holdall when he and his dog do the next patrol. He puts the package close to one of the bunker entrances and continues his patrol. On his next circuit he exclaims "Shock, Horror, there appears to be an IED".

As it was IN the SSA the world then went mad. The bomb squad turned up. Didn't like the look of it at all and decided to put the robot in and blow the thing up.

BANG!!

No secondary explosion and then after a suitable wait they go in to investigate and find myriad sex toys scattered about along with the shredded packaging.

Amongst the packaging was......yes, you guessed it ..... the guys name and address.

It was fun preparing the Court Martial brief.

[NutLoose]

Pontius Navigator I rang one number only for the answerer "You don't want to call this number, do you?"

"Who is that?" I asked timorously. "Air Commodore Carver's resident," said his major domo or whoever. I made my apologies and hung up. Didn't you just love the PBX operators?

I remember when concerned about the amount of calls from RAF Germany to the UK they put a veto on them..
. However we quickly realised a flaw in the system, where there is an Ends there is a Means, so calling an ex Colleague serving in Hong Kong we asked if they could transfer the call to the UK which he promptly did

[Rossian]

Separating "exercise" and "live"

After 10 hrs in a German Navy Atlantique west of Norway, inbound to Nordholz for what was going to provide the inject for the base disaster plan. I'd resisted my "minder's" attempts to see the contents of the "brown envelope" so that "I can then to the crew the details explain".
We were supposed to have had a SAM strike and lost all comms (credibility was not a strong requirement). This would require a normal transit of Danish airspace then going "speechless" entering German airspace. So far so good.
Half way through Danish airspace my minder comes galloping down to the galley where I was enjoying a coffee and a smoke.
"Put out the cigarette and put on your O2 mask"
"I haven't got a mask - helmet yes,immersion suit yes, parachute yes O2 mask nein"
"You must have, we all have one why do you not have one?"
"Nobody gave me one!! Anyway it's only a simulated fire ...
"Nein! Now we have a real fire behind copilot's instrument panel!" BuggAH!

Give them their due they pressed on with the speechless bit....???
As the interrogation unfolded it was clear that the tower was convinced that this was the "disaster plan" they'd all been expecting and refused to believe that it was real.

AS the smoke haze thickend I eventually went to the Captain and shouted "FFS do it in clear and get down I don't have a mask"
Arranged for the flteng to pop the back door to the exit hatch as soon as we depressurised, went down the back and sat right beside it.

Landed, and I was out the back and down the ladder like a rat up a drain pipe to be met by a galaxy of flashing lights green blue red orange in a semi circle around the back of the aircraft - it was like the finale of "close encounters of the third kind"

Loud hailers shouting at me in German. WTFO? eventually we were all gathered together and bussed away the basement of the local town hall medical centre.
The final straw was the doc saying to me "I'm sorry I don't listen to chests in English"
Another interesting day.

The next day I did four hours in the sim with the same crew.

The Ancient Mariner

[Exrigger]

Thought I would add one similar to another posted: RAF Coningsby mid 80's and call out goes about 6 in the morning all the people in one area of Tattershall quarters from the day shift turned up at normal start time to a surprised guard force who thought the exercise had ended as we were all in normal uniform.

The applicable Sqn & OCU execs having to take disciplinary action until the same story got around of "what alarm" it turns out bricks and mortar personnel had forgotten to service the siren in the middle of the squares and they were completely inop from birds nests. Needless to say nothing went further and the applicable night shifts were informed personally to come in dressed for war.

[TLDNMCL]

Up on the Moray Firth a good few years back:
Sgt. Welshname approache by Di-Staff to become not only disaffected, but mentally unstable too. This started off with a liitle out-of-character behaviour, but soon blossomed into Sgt. Welshname's dream day.
As time went by he became more and more erratic, until it reache the point where he had decided to climb up onto the crew room roof, and subsequently onto the hangar roof.
At this point much effing and blinding ensued, with threats to jump, and pretty vile insults hurled at anyone who tried to appease him.

Cue the arrival of the heavy mob; Doc had a go, "You can F'off an'all!" Padre had a go, "WTF's it gotta do with you?" You get the picture.

It was decided to call our own squadron boss, to see if a familiar face would do the trick (our hero had been told roughly at which point to aquiesce, but was enjoying his role far too much to comply).

Now, the boss had a passing resembance to John Cleese, which was not lost on Sgt Welshname.

Boss, <along the lines of> "Come on Sgt, let's try to give you some help here, no-one wants to see you get hurt!"

SW, "F'off Basil! Show us one of yer funny walks!"

One very disgruntled boss, two giggling-like-scoolgirls Di-Staff

[neilmac]

Taceval

Guarding Coltishall Tower with a pick axe handle.....lack of rifles or maybe they didn't trust me.
Runway Caravan at Marham, everybody else in respirators but not down the Caravan plus you can see people n planes sneaking up on you to put it on in time and muffle your voice when answering phones/RT.

[uffington sb]

Top secret RAF station not too far from Carterton early 80's, with a short and even shorter tempered staish.
Situation: in the WOC during a Minival and NBC black, hoods up and respirators on. Phone rings and Cpl Uffers answers it. It's the GE from the Dulles flight to report it's U/S at Dulles. (This is not long after when senior civil servants had complained about the poor service given to them by the RAF, aircraft breaking down, no free drinks etc and the staish had decreed that an aircraft had to be prepped as a standby, and another prepped as the standby standby.).
Cpl Uffers understanding the gravity of the call, removes helmet and respirator to be able to converse with the GE. Staish on seeing me sans respirators goes into a fit, screaming "get your respirator on" or words to that effect.
Says to GE Call back in five, dons respirator and helmet and walks across to the tote board and writes ' U /S in IAD'.
Staish goes ballistic again, ripping his mask off and shouting at me. I reply in much muffled voice to which he screams " take your respirator off".
I look around the room and even with respirators on, I could tell there was much sniggering going on.

[uffington sb]

DX Wombat.
Don't worry about the post concerning babies heads. They were not real babies heads, but individual steak and kidney puddings from compo rations.

[DX Wombat]

Thank you Uffington, I did wonder just what merited that name but having seen on sale some of the pale, revolting concoctions masquerading as Snake and Pigmy puds and hearing of the standard (or should that be depth?) of inedibility of some of your rations, I am of the opinion that the Babies Heads name is most appropriate.
The dogs are becoming used to the outbursts of hysterical laughter so the prospect of a visit to the vet is disappearing rapidly over the horizon. I, however have got very sore sides from all the laughing - but it is worth it.

[NutLoose]

Yup they were similar to Fray Bentos steak and kidney suet puddings in a regular shaped tin, a suet outer that had a flesh tone to it containing a meaty pinkish interior, and hence the name.... They were actually delicious..

Same with the compo sausages and cheese possessed.


Scroll down for pictures that will make grown men quiver... Biscuits AB and lemon powder

TINNED COMPO SAUSAGES - Page 15

[oldmansquipper]

It was Tacevals Generation Phase - @Laffin Laar - when the RAFs premier recce sqn was already deployed to a local town on `Carnival` Duties. Squadron members were well into the apfelkorn and bratties when the hooter went. Sadly the famed steam hooter could not be heard at such a distance So very few turned up on Gold Sector initially and those that did were the worse for wear.

Luckily, a lesser recce Sqn was out from the UK on "Hawkeye" and not being locals, they were not involved in the traditional Carnival drinkathons. The visiting pilots couldn't get off base, so they pitched up at Gold (bless em) where they graciously donned flying suits bearing the names of the premier Sqns jockeys and introduced themselves to the Taceval team in Gold PBF...Sorted!

I gather the foreign nationals on the Taceval team had difficulty working out how we were able to declare 110% serviceability at the end of the day either....

[ShyTorque]

In RAFG, during a TACEVAL in the field, one of our more enthusiastic SNCO loadmasters came back from a heltask to the sight of some groundcrew lying on the ground. He put them on a charge for sunbathing on duty. Someone quietly led him away to tell him they were actually exercise casualties.

[Pontius Navigator]

Originally Posted by DX Wombat

masquerading as Snake and Pigmy puds

At ISK, under the pretext of rotating the rat ions the officers' mess used to serve lunch consisting of half a tin of steak and kidney pub. We knew it was half a tin as it was tin shaped and had the consume by date impressed in the hot suet.

[BEagle]

I was on ' Southeren Q' at RAF Wattisham during one exercise, so safely out of the way of all the practice bleeding, secure in our 'real war' Q-shed environment.

In the middle of the night there was an altercation outside - it seems that they'd got to that part of the exercise when rations had to be pre-positioned at various locations. The fact that the Q-shed was off-limits during our periods of Southern Q hadn't been noted by the exercise players, so some lad in a Land_Rover was valiantly trying to deliver several cardboard boxes full of food......

But OC Catering (or whoever) had been quite clever. Realising that anything vaguely tasty would immediately be scoffed by the groundcrew, he'd sent us nothing but several dozen large cans of beans, green, sliced.... Needless to say, they were returned intact at ENDEX!

Personally I loathed compo sausages. But as an example of synergy, compo corned dog mixed with compo instant potato and some cheese possessed, then fried in a mess tin with compo margarine was very tasty. The sum of the components being far greater than their individual worth!

[Pontius Navigator]

Originally Posted by BEagle

But OC Catering (or whoever) had been quite clever. Realising that anything vaguely tasty would immediately be scoffed by the groundcrew,

Incredibly astute.

As mentioned before, at ISL a huge block of mousetrap was placed on a table in flying clothing. Mousetrap - flying clothing locker room - aircrew with dinghy knives!

The amount of cheese returned to the rat store postex could have been fitted on one mouse trap.

[Cubanate]

Bruggen again, mid-Winter. As an MDF Commander I receive a report that a group of protesting 'locals' were preventing 14 Sqn Jaguars from leaving the Sqn dispersal. Arrived on scene to find 'locals' wearing jeans and T-shirts, sitting across taxiway, arms linked, and refusing to move while four Jags were waiting behind them engines running. Identified Ring Leader (RL) and asked him to kindly move and let us get on with the War, otherwise I'd have to take action. RL smiled but said he and his group were going nowhere, and so were the Jags. Called the COC to request the assistance of the Fire Section who duly arrived and thoroughly hosed protesters down. Give them their due, they remained seated despite being frozen to the core and shivering uncontrollably. RL once again declined my request to move and the Jags continued waiting. Drastic measures were now needed so I called the COC to ask for the RAFP Dogs to attend. They did and I pointed out the RL to an enthusiastic Handler and gave him a brief instruction. 'No problem, Sir!' he said and off he went. In less than a minute the RL had a Police dog attached to his upturned arm and the Jags took off. Met RL in the Mess later that day; he was slightly injured and still shivering and told me what a I was. Happily, though, we remain friends to this day.