A Cranwell education
Other way round. Pete Azzaro was an outstanding keeper for the very successful College side during his three years on 83. Mike Radforth wasn't a footballer, but a good tennis player
BOING. Re GB.
Had a chat with him around 1977 at Gütersloh . IIRC he was with some visiting G91's.
Fortunately the stripper on 101's Grad. had on a fair bit of RAF Uniform- initially . This included an SD hat worn by the preceding act , which was a 101 Rock Ape doing a faux strip tease in his No 1's ( " Unfortunately the Commandant wouldn't let us have a real stripper guys -- so here's "Rocky!!!")
At the end of his turn he threw the hat stage left and from behind the curtain a dainty hand reached out and caught it- and she was on.
Had a chat with him around 1977 at Gütersloh . IIRC he was with some visiting G91's.
Fortunately the stripper on 101's Grad. had on a fair bit of RAF Uniform- initially . This included an SD hat worn by the preceding act , which was a 101 Rock Ape doing a faux strip tease in his No 1's ( " Unfortunately the Commandant wouldn't let us have a real stripper guys -- so here's "Rocky!!!")
At the end of his turn he threw the hat stage left and from behind the curtain a dainty hand reached out and caught it- and she was on.
Last edited by Haraka; 5th Jun 2014 at 15:16.
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X767
Yep - a nagging doubt has been sitting in the old swede; I thought it might be Pete who was the goalkeeper (despite his relatively short stature). And now I recall playing many games with Mike as his doubles partner on our lengthy deployments to Midway Island (27 Sqn - 1970s).
Put it down to age, and still recovering from hefty surgery and copious amounts of drugs and chemicals, even 18 months after the event...well, mainly age, really
Mister B
Yep - a nagging doubt has been sitting in the old swede; I thought it might be Pete who was the goalkeeper (despite his relatively short stature). And now I recall playing many games with Mike as his doubles partner on our lengthy deployments to Midway Island (27 Sqn - 1970s).
Put it down to age, and still recovering from hefty surgery and copious amounts of drugs and chemicals, even 18 months after the event...well, mainly age, really
Mister B
HTB wrote:
Fortunately, after we inherited 'that' role, we used the VC10K3. So our detachments were at Hickam....
A never to be forgotten moment when I was told that I had to go to Hawaii for an unknown length of time. 'twas hell, I tell thee!
Yet another capability today's little RAF no longer has...
on our lengthy deployments to Midway Island (27 Sqn - 1970s).
A never to be forgotten moment when I was told that I had to go to Hawaii for an unknown length of time. 'twas hell, I tell thee!
Yet another capability today's little RAF no longer has...
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3 year course!
Are you old sweats having me on? Was it ever 3 years long....blimey how those airpower lessons must have flown past! I suppose it was mixed in with a first degree then was it? Much like what some countries still do now I guess?
My stay was long enough - thank goodness I didn't have remedial or Mash. I don't think I could have hacked it. Not because the course was hard. If anything I would have preferred it harder as it would have really sorted the wheat from the chaff but also because it would have taken the stuffing out of those who felt they were above it all.
Best memories are those of drill periods. Always hoping that you could be just that split second faster than some unfortunate soul who caught the eye of the drill pig. Oh and the first inspection when half the course was picked up and as punishment had to march to CHOM late one evening - so there we all were marching in unison and I started whistling the theme tune to the great escape, and then everyone did. Of course I only felt that brave because there was no drill pig with us. They weren't that stupid to waste a lovely balmy evening!
My stay was long enough - thank goodness I didn't have remedial or Mash. I don't think I could have hacked it. Not because the course was hard. If anything I would have preferred it harder as it would have really sorted the wheat from the chaff but also because it would have taken the stuffing out of those who felt they were above it all.
Best memories are those of drill periods. Always hoping that you could be just that split second faster than some unfortunate soul who caught the eye of the drill pig. Oh and the first inspection when half the course was picked up and as punishment had to march to CHOM late one evening - so there we all were marching in unison and I started whistling the theme tune to the great escape, and then everyone did. Of course I only felt that brave because there was no drill pig with us. They weren't that stupid to waste a lovely balmy evening!
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Cranwell Foreign Studes
ISTR that Bandar Sultan was on 95 entry. I was told he had a flat in or near the Bunny Club on Park Lane.
There were 4 exchange cadets on 99 entry - I probably won't get their names right but here goes - Bom San Gooi (Malasia) known as Billy; Cheong Cze Chang (Malaysia) known as Charlie; (something Indian) Rehman known as Ray and Saeed Achmed known as Sid.
Ray was a bit quiet but they were all great guys who just fitted in with the cadet culture.
Sid and I hitch hiked down to the RAF Club one Friday for their Saturday night disco (those were the days!), on the way we got a lift from a Belgian diamond dealer in a big car who had an open bottle of red wine in the front when we got into the back. He lived in a big house on Ladbroke Grove and when we got there the wine bottle was empty. He invited us to stay for dinner and he cooked a respectable curry. Then we got the tube to Hyde Park and repaired to the RAF Club.
After I graduated and moved to the Student Officers' Mess - there were some groups of foreign studes doing the applied course (engineering) and someone (I was told) encouraged a lady from Sleaford to set up business in one of the rooms in the lower west wing.
Also when Idi Amin stopped paying the Ugandan studes they used to hang around the entrance to the bar and hope someone would buy them a drink.
Ain't life funny.
Rgds SOS
There were 4 exchange cadets on 99 entry - I probably won't get their names right but here goes - Bom San Gooi (Malasia) known as Billy; Cheong Cze Chang (Malaysia) known as Charlie; (something Indian) Rehman known as Ray and Saeed Achmed known as Sid.
Ray was a bit quiet but they were all great guys who just fitted in with the cadet culture.
Sid and I hitch hiked down to the RAF Club one Friday for their Saturday night disco (those were the days!), on the way we got a lift from a Belgian diamond dealer in a big car who had an open bottle of red wine in the front when we got into the back. He lived in a big house on Ladbroke Grove and when we got there the wine bottle was empty. He invited us to stay for dinner and he cooked a respectable curry. Then we got the tube to Hyde Park and repaired to the RAF Club.
After I graduated and moved to the Student Officers' Mess - there were some groups of foreign studes doing the applied course (engineering) and someone (I was told) encouraged a lady from Sleaford to set up business in one of the rooms in the lower west wing.
Also when Idi Amin stopped paying the Ugandan studes they used to hang around the entrance to the bar and hope someone would buy them a drink.
Ain't life funny.
Rgds SOS
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Beags
Having experienced (in a part-time fashion on 35) the primary 27 sqn role, only fitting that in due course you picked up the more agreeable role (if you discount the possibility of polluting yourself and the airframe with some unpleasant particles). Although being based at Hickalulu is a bit excessive (or had the USN accommodation on Midway already been condemned as unfit for for Truckies/Tankers?)
Double nostalgia in the image - XH558 at Scampton fitted with the laser guided photon torpedo...
Mister B
Having experienced (in a part-time fashion on 35) the primary 27 sqn role, only fitting that in due course you picked up the more agreeable role (if you discount the possibility of polluting yourself and the airframe with some unpleasant particles). Although being based at Hickalulu is a bit excessive (or had the USN accommodation on Midway already been condemned as unfit for for Truckies/Tankers?)
Double nostalgia in the image - XH558 at Scampton fitted with the laser guided photon torpedo...
Mister B
Last edited by HTB; 6th Jun 2014 at 09:05.
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A Cranwell Education
The1 is right. The course was indeed 3 years long. It contailed many utterly redundant academic items, such as, just for example, a very detailed treatment of thermodynamics. But the man weakness was that there was not enough flying taining; I seem to recall that it amounted to about 300 hours, but spread over the last two and a half years of the course. This may help explain why the accident rate among ex-cadets was so high.i
When 99 entry arrived in Sep 68 we were informed of the new Graduate Entry system decision and those that were willing and able then transferred across, albeit , in most cases with a one year delay before going up to University. During this time we were in the Cranwell "mill" and a number of us were "chopped". The rest of us who got through this year were then told to "write it off to experience" 
before being commissioned and going up into the rarified atmosphere of academia.
On our return , having spent three years taking money from the taxpayer in the meantime, we went through a ( then noticeably watered down) IOT circus for a second time, in company with the other Graduate Entrants , again with a number of these being shown the door. It has to be admitted that a couple of ex-99'ers also engineered their departure, having exploited a loophole in our permanently commissioned conditions of service.
My point is this .
Would it not be a good idea to consider a system, based upon this for us, "wasted" time, in which officer selection and IOT is done before sending those who were successful off on University cadetships post IOT, thus sorting the wheat from the chaff three years early, and then subsequently being able to put successful graduates directly in to branch training on their return ?
before being commissioned and going up into the rarified atmosphere of academia.On our return , having spent three years taking money from the taxpayer in the meantime, we went through a ( then noticeably watered down) IOT circus for a second time, in company with the other Graduate Entrants , again with a number of these being shown the door. It has to be admitted that a couple of ex-99'ers also engineered their departure, having exploited a loophole in our permanently commissioned conditions of service.
My point is this .
Would it not be a good idea to consider a system, based upon this for us, "wasted" time, in which officer selection and IOT is done before sending those who were successful off on University cadetships post IOT, thus sorting the wheat from the chaff three years early, and then subsequently being able to put successful graduates directly in to branch training on their return ?
Last edited by Haraka; 6th Jun 2014 at 15:33.
Certainly when I was an IOT flt cdr early 80s we got graduates that were un-commissionable at the end of the course but in some cases we were told to "graduate" them, especially any engineers who stood any chance of making it in service, as they were in short supply
Wander00, it was my experience that some of the Flt Cdrs were a long way short of the mark around that time also. One on our sqn nearly got us flattened by 100 tanks at night, and my own was court-marshaled 2 years later and dismissed the Service. Some were excellent, mind.
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Tanks?
Fox..
Tanks as in the trundle...trundle...trundle booom type or something else? Can't imagine RAF offr cadets involved in any exercise that would involve a Div's worth of tanks.
The old courses definitely were harder!
Tanks as in the trundle...trundle...trundle booom type or something else? Can't imagine RAF offr cadets involved in any exercise that would involve a Div's worth of tanks.
The old courses definitely were harder!
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Fox..
Nov 83 SPTA night navex near Imber with stretcher-borne "casualty", by any chance? Those really were tanks of the trundle...trundle... (clank).. variety. It was foggy, too...
Nov 83 SPTA night navex near Imber with stretcher-borne "casualty", by any chance? Those really were tanks of the trundle...trundle... (clank).. variety. It was foggy, too...
Last edited by Deskex76; 7th Jun 2014 at 13:05. Reason: Spelling..
Fox3/Deskex - "C" Sqn?
There was a flt cdr on my sqn who allegedly told a recoursed cadet that "Anywhere else they would have given you a loaded revolver on a green baize table, but instead they have sent you to me"
There was a flt cdr on my sqn who allegedly told a recoursed cadet that "Anywhere else they would have given you a loaded revolver on a green baize table, but instead they have sent you to me"
December '84. 'D' Sqn, Camp 2, SPTA.
4 days of freezing fog. Being in the Tri-Service Orienteering Squad, I had by now been specifically forbidden from having a map because it made it too easy for the others. The cadet lead got us thoroughly lost on an early afternoon lead, with a similarly clueless Flt Cdr. It was approaching sunset when the Flt Cdr turned to me and said:
"I've no idea where we are. Get us out of this and I'll buy you a pint"
"You'll buy us all a pint"
"OK, done. By the way, there's 100 tanks and 200 other AFVs coming over the plain in 3 hours"
"
"
Two cadets went hypothermic on the way back as well. The base camp had been advised to the Army, and there were lights to string up around the wood they were in. But we were in the middle of the plain & basically f#cked if we didn't get back. It is not pleasant being in the dark, in the fog, with 2 real casualties and able to hear the distant rumble of 300 AFVs. They can't see you, they can't hear you, and they won't even notice when they flatten you.
We made it back with 4 mins to spare.
This probably allowed me to graduate first time, as up till this point I was told I had had more nights on restrictions than any other cadet in IOT history (who passed).
p.s. DeskEx -ISTR being the casualty (another means of making sure I couldn't be shown a map), but not sure if it was this ex.
4 days of freezing fog. Being in the Tri-Service Orienteering Squad, I had by now been specifically forbidden from having a map because it made it too easy for the others. The cadet lead got us thoroughly lost on an early afternoon lead, with a similarly clueless Flt Cdr. It was approaching sunset when the Flt Cdr turned to me and said:
"I've no idea where we are. Get us out of this and I'll buy you a pint"
"You'll buy us all a pint"
"OK, done. By the way, there's 100 tanks and 200 other AFVs coming over the plain in 3 hours"
"
"Two cadets went hypothermic on the way back as well. The base camp had been advised to the Army, and there were lights to string up around the wood they were in. But we were in the middle of the plain & basically f#cked if we didn't get back. It is not pleasant being in the dark, in the fog, with 2 real casualties and able to hear the distant rumble of 300 AFVs. They can't see you, they can't hear you, and they won't even notice when they flatten you.
We made it back with 4 mins to spare.
This probably allowed me to graduate first time, as up till this point I was told I had had more nights on restrictions than any other cadet in IOT history (who passed).
p.s. DeskEx -ISTR being the casualty (another means of making sure I couldn't be shown a map), but not sure if it was this ex.
Last edited by Fox3WheresMyBanana; 7th Jun 2014 at 14:25.
C Sqn Flt Cdrs. Ah, the memories.
1985. Night before Black Thursday one of the C Sqn flt cdrs decides to have his flight around his for drinks. One on the flight was expecting to graduate as a flt lt (eng grad, older than the norm with plenty of mil relevant civvy experience). Flt cdr asks him whether he is looking forward to graduating, family looking forward to it, gold braid at the grad ball etc.
10am the next day he chops him!
Cadet appeals, wins (sort of) and is recoursed instead. Graduates 12 weeks later and is now, I believe, a wearer of scrambled egg on his SD hat. The flt cdr left, I believe, at 55 (and still as a flt lt).
1985. Night before Black Thursday one of the C Sqn flt cdrs decides to have his flight around his for drinks. One on the flight was expecting to graduate as a flt lt (eng grad, older than the norm with plenty of mil relevant civvy experience). Flt cdr asks him whether he is looking forward to graduating, family looking forward to it, gold braid at the grad ball etc.
10am the next day he chops him!
Cadet appeals, wins (sort of) and is recoursed instead. Graduates 12 weeks later and is now, I believe, a wearer of scrambled egg on his SD hat. The flt cdr left, I believe, at 55 (and still as a flt lt).
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Fox 3/Wanderoo..
Same Sqn, Fox, different courses.
To have been stuck on the plain amidst that quantity of armour would have been "entertaining", if quite an impressive sight (OK - in those conditions, sound).
My Flt's night-time stroll in the fog, a Camp 1 affair, simply brought us reasonably close to some of HM's clanking horse-substitutes as we stumbled across, I believe, a Sandhurst exercise in the wrong place. Whilst there weren't hundreds of tanks/AFVs in this instance, those that there were did seem to get close enough. The worst part was being the casualty (possibly for similar reasons to Fox's although I might be flattering myself about my ability with maps..), with a misty view of the stars but no way to gauge accurately what was happening on the ground. It all ended well, though, so no harm done..
Same Sqn, Fox, different courses.
To have been stuck on the plain amidst that quantity of armour would have been "entertaining", if quite an impressive sight (OK - in those conditions, sound).
My Flt's night-time stroll in the fog, a Camp 1 affair, simply brought us reasonably close to some of HM's clanking horse-substitutes as we stumbled across, I believe, a Sandhurst exercise in the wrong place. Whilst there weren't hundreds of tanks/AFVs in this instance, those that there were did seem to get close enough. The worst part was being the casualty (possibly for similar reasons to Fox's although I might be flattering myself about my ability with maps..), with a misty view of the stars but no way to gauge accurately what was happening on the ground. It all ended well, though, so no harm done..
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Correct decision
Yeah correct decision taken by you guys ..when the tanks are on the Plain and there's some doubt about whether they know you're there or not. My Staffie was in a land rover, and hit an AFV at night coming the other way. Broken ribs, cheek bone, leg, hand. Only thing that saved him was that he had his helmet on so when his head smashed into the windscreen, it wasn't his head that cracked. Super bloke and glad he made a full recovery.
Well some enlightening insights here - I wish that's where today's course was .. a bit more arduous putting people outside of their comfort zone in order to show people how to fight thru' or the role of leadership or allowing people to realise that people can have diverse strengths that can add to the team. I'm not saying make it a platoon commanders battle course - simply to use NAVEX, or field conditions to bring people out of their comfort zone.
I'm not up to speed on the content / format of the current course. I've heard there's a lot more academic been added on - I wonder at whose expense? One thing I did like was the 360 assessment during the Basic /Intermediate /Advanced Leadership phases i.e after your lead saying what you thought what you did well/bad and allowing your team members to assess your performance. What I really did not like was the number of 'injuries' preventing people taking part in the final race on Sennybridge, yet making a miraculous recovery the next night at the bop!
Well some enlightening insights here - I wish that's where today's course was .. a bit more arduous putting people outside of their comfort zone in order to show people how to fight thru' or the role of leadership or allowing people to realise that people can have diverse strengths that can add to the team. I'm not saying make it a platoon commanders battle course - simply to use NAVEX, or field conditions to bring people out of their comfort zone.
I'm not up to speed on the content / format of the current course. I've heard there's a lot more academic been added on - I wonder at whose expense? One thing I did like was the 360 assessment during the Basic /Intermediate /Advanced Leadership phases i.e after your lead saying what you thought what you did well/bad and allowing your team members to assess your performance. What I really did not like was the number of 'injuries' preventing people taking part in the final race on Sennybridge, yet making a miraculous recovery the next night at the bop!