Jaguar Overseas Training Flight
 

I see that 41 Sqn made the Current Bun today. Another variation on the 'overseas jolly wastes taxpayers money' theme after 3 jets went to Aviano for the weekend (presumably on what we used to call a Ranger). The article reeked of disgruntled non badge holder (trade deleted to reduce the risk of flaming) sour grapes. Surely the pilots were not 'frolicking in the snow with engineers' as the rag reported. Whatever next...

Here is the link. Why not if you can!

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006090539,00.html

Thank be that the sun never showed at Decci when 1(f) were there in the 70s, they would fill the rag for a week

So, disaffected liney who didn't get to go, or, bitter and twisted shiney/stacker ?
Now there's an area where training won't be wasted !

S_H

'Last night an outraged member of the ground crew at the base stormed: "It was just a total jolly and all at the public’s expense." '

Been at the dung again, Baldrick?

Translated, surely it was "Bleedin' zobs swan off ter Italy an' we don't get to go. Not fair, 's a bleedin liberty, innit"

Well at least that's 6 jets you don't have to work on for a few days, you moaning git. Now cut along and stop complaining.

Somone's been talking a load of frolicks!

Guess they prob'ly stick out a bit more in the "Modern" RAF than they did a few years ago. Suprised they still have an OTF budget worth speaking of, TBH... :(

"The RAF told The Sun: “We can confirm that six Jaguar aircraft that flew into to Aviano, Italy, were on a standard overseas training flight.

“This training mission allowed us to achieve and maintain operational capability for rapid overseas deployment to an overseas Nato airbase.

"Such training includes responsibility for the maintenance of the aircraft whilst on deployment by the aircrew.”


C'mon now chaps,no need to be so defensive,just admit the guys are making the most of the Jaguars final days in service.It isnt as if they are going to be used for anything worthwhile before retirement.

What, six jags left Colt and all six made it to Aviano??

Now that I find hard to believe! Not April 1st yet is it? :confused:

Utter f-ing bunch of cock
 

Once again this tiresome doc template has been pulled out by the gutter rags. Just edit the aircraft type and destination and hey presto - headline news.

We better start only doing landaways to the sh1tholes of the world, and then being confined to camp, lest we be seen to enjoy our job and take an interest in the opportunities it affords.

Further to what Deliverance said, if you'd worked harder at school you could have been doing landaways in frontline military aircraft, rather than sitting on your arse reading (or writing) the Current Bun.

Utter bunch of arse. Grrrrr. (Was that you, Francois?)

Landaway to Banjul, anyone?

...or alternatively, during a recent land of sand det, sit a Scum photographer right next to the ramp much to the smug delight of the little tw@t whilst all the other journos were sat further forward, then deny him permission ot use his camera and then "run out" of sick bags when the slimey yellow-spined oik felt a little queasy (during a very gentle transition worthy of 32 Sqn I hasten to add) :E
I find it SOOOOOO funny that out of all the journos I've hosted/escorted/answered stupid questions for, it's always the Scum who categorically come out top as THE most unmilitary people ever to walk the face of the Earth.
Torygraph always cut a dash in safari suits and stout brogues,
Daily Mail go all modern and Rohan...
But the Scum.......a fecking shell-suit on a military flight.
What's that? Take the pi$$? Us? :uhoh:

There can be no doubt that OTF is valuable training for crews in transiting across national borders and I can't think of a FJ unit which doesn't do it. Perhaps the stun wouldn't be able to raise it as an issue however if it had been a days trip out and a days trip back midweek, rather than a weekend city break with 3 nights in a hotel, unless of course the guys stayed in visiting Officers Quarters at Aviano AB, that doesn't seem to be the case here. Even people who didn't work hard at school can see the need for a bit of common sense in these days of financial restraint. :ok:

Right chaps, here is the deal. We need to get our stats up to date so we need a couple of crews to take a pair of jets away for the weekend. I know you spend a long time in hot shi$$y places so you can pick somewhere nice. However, you have to stay on base and dont be seen to be having a good time, in case we offend the press or non-flying types. Any volunteers?

Jaguar training
 

As a humble but much exploited taxpayer watching my taxes being wasted on a range of useless ventures - my comment is :-
The services seem to be the only thing left of any value - so if you did have a few drinks after your training detail then I can only hope it was my bit of the tax burden that paid for them - cheers to you all.

Did they manage to sneak the upright piano in the back seat of one of the T birds for the end of det sing/bar B Q burn along song? Or am I confusing them with another Colt Sqn?

I have no problem with you guys going anywhere, but with one clause: if it's somewhere nice, would you mind doing a 'proper servicing';) and find something that requires me to come out and do a quick fix before heading off to the local bar? Cheers:ok:

TT - I think a number of those who took part were hoping to give the local ladies a "proper servicing" :ok:

This is a terrible waste of taxpayers money. Whatever next. These RAF pilots using taxpayers money to enjoy themselves will only give our hard working politicians ideas. I can envisage all sorts of jollies been organised by politicians using this as RAF detachment as an example.

The politicians will want to, at the taxpayers expense:-

Travel 1st Class.
Hold meetings on world poverty in places like the Bahamas while staying in 5* hotels.
Use Taxis to visit friends.
Get approx £10,000 per year to pay a mortgage on a flat in Edinburgh and keep the profit when they sell it.
Have a chauffer driven car to take them to Aberdeen to catch a flight home and give their girlfriends a lift to work.
Claim motor mileage for Scottish trips when they are out of the country.

Where will it all end:confused:

HF;) (most of the examples are taken from that waste of taxpayers money the Scottish Talking Shop:mad: )

(hope it was as good as our mountain flying detachments to BK in the 70s. Recce the slopes am ski pm)

Blimey - 18 posts and no Southside justifiaction of the amazing journalistic accuracies, must be a record.....:D

plassey1: cheers mate, clearly one of the silent minority:)

hummingfrog: good call. But don't get me started on the real loafing/freebie experts. Yes, your Euro f*cking MP. Now there's a gravy train on a circular track. They make the oily local lot look like toddlers. Their expenses alone are way in excess of the average salary on this website. Leaving party politics out of it for a second (I'm full-on Tory by the way), check out the Kinnocks.
100,000 a piece basic before their admin staff have even started filling in the claim forms. Jolly to Italy for the weekend? Go for it lads. It's a drop in the ocean compared to what other 'public servants' get up to. Even their cars use more fuel as their mileage allowance is way, way more than that granted to HM Forces.

By the way, be honest, how many of you know the name of your Euro MP?

If any of the chaps from Colt who went on this det are reading this forum, I hope you had a bloody good time. Jollys / training opportunities are one of the things I miss most about the military life, so I'm glad someoine is still having a good time.

As for my Euro MP's name.....I have no clue and less interest. Couldn't that oxygen thief Prescott be shoved aside to Brussels and give us all a break?

Didnt get a chance to read it but saw over someones shoulder a half page piece in the Daily (fe)Mail today including large pic of the sqn cdr. I suppose there is nothing else going on in the world worth the column inches......

JOLLIES
 

I do not think that many ground crew will begrudge anybody a few days away. Nice work if you can get it. A small number may be envious/jealous though. Get the trips while you can, you'll miss them after service life. The cost is but a drop in the ocean compared with other defence spending (and MP/EMP allowances).

'We knew how to whinge but we kept it in the NAAFI bar.'

...and thats what the toe-rag who spoke to the Scum should have done !!!!!
:ok:

He'll be found out - smug gits like him will eventually let it slip out. You know the type - 'great, innit - I dropped them right in it this time, didn't I?'

Then I hope he drawn through the eye of a needle and given a good thumping by those around him that don't like to see the Forces dragged through the media mire.

Sounds like a candidate for a few less pleasant duties [after he gets out of the med centre, of course]...

Yeah, your'e right. How could I ignore this one. Well, despite what you may think I think that if you can get away with it then crack on. I'm just surprised that the RAF haven't learnt the lessons from last year. In the RN we still go away on jollies but nowadays they are generally during the week and involve an element of flying when we arrive in the host country...no more the piss ups in Amsterdam I'm afraid.

What concerns me though is this scenario.

Little old fella in Jockland reading his daily rag, turns the page to see this...
Disgusting, he thinks. How can the Government even think of sending our boys into battle without the adequate kit. What do they mean they need to save money...???


and then the following day he picks up his rag and reads...


And that gentlemen is why you should be very careful when planning your beano's.

We could plan a trip to the a*se end of nowhere and the gutter press would make it look like a 5 star trip to the bahamas contaceptives supplied. Lets face it, they needed to fill up some tabloid space and picked on this, gave it their own slant and put it in the paper as a scandel. It sold some extra copies and the editor got a pat on the back, unfortunately when their is a slow news day this sort of total rubbish will appear.
The scum and news of the screws i believe are the same publishers? and thats the second bit of military hitting they done recently, (beating up of iraqi's), they got something against us at the moment. Remember this sort of thing next time you go into the newsagents, and when there is another conflict and they proudly boast how they are the newspaper supporting our boys and girls, we know it is just to sell thier rag, and they dont actualy give a rats a** about us.
d-f

But you have to remember that the Editor of the currant bun is a big big fan of the Armed Forces. She has flown with many of us - we even took her Husband flying and all she is reporting is the facts....(a little jounalistic licence but thats allowed)

A fact that seems to have evaded tabloid hacks and readers is that military aircraft have to be flown to provide training for military aircrew. In most sane people's opinions, if you have to train and manage to fly somewhere nice and enjoy your downtime - well done. I thinkit would be more wasteful not to take these opportunities, which don't actually come up all that often. To avoid them, to appease some sort of tabloid induced guilt about enjoying one's job, would be ridiculous, but is the probabl MoD response.

The cost of hotels probably equates to holding the jets on the brakes for a couple of minutes and if the crews buy a couple of beers out of their salaries (not the defence budget), good luck to them.

Of course, using tablo logic, the tax payer funds the defence budget, which pays the salaries, which buy the beer! So maybe Sun readers have a right to question what aircrew spend their money on. Perhaps after landing and debriefing at an away base, the formation leader could phone the Sun, and in the next day's rag there could be a phone-in poll. I can see it now:

Sun Poll: Should Skygod Formation, posh biggles ruperts, be allowed to fritter your tax money on a pint now and enjoy the local ents or should the stay in their rooms and do tech. Txt your vote now.

This could extend to all aspects of a pilot's life - fantastic financial advice from the Sun:

Fg Off Bloggs wants to put down a deposit on his first home. Sun readers say NO! Get a council flat instead. Spend £500 on an 0.9l Nova and spend the other £14500 on accessories for it. Use a credit card to buy the biggest satellite dish you can get for your council flat and fill it with DFS sofas. Pay nothing for 2 years and then have the bailiffs take it away.

Plt Off Prune is considering buying a bespoke Saville Row suit and some Jermyn Street shirts that will cut a dash for years to come. The Sun says NO! Buy a Burberry pattern shell suit and some £400 trainers that are cool this week but so uncool next week that the local hoodies will throw empty WKD bottles at you. Add to that some Elizabeth Duke male jewellry, (the sort of 3 carat plate chains that make your skin go green and give you heavy metal poisining) and you da shizzle, homie!:ok:

This post could carry on ad infinitum, so I'll stop and do something more productive instead. In short, poke off Sun and find some real news to write about. (I hope Sun readers don't mind me using the internet).

or you can use a simulator...but the sim doesn't have any ski slopes or a bar at the other end.

The 'NO' man strikes again
 

Playing Devil's Advocate again Southy, or just trolling. If you are a pilot at all, you will know very well the limitations of simulators. They are generally very good for procedural and emergencies, but never perfectly replicate low level, handling, air traffic and many other real world aspects of flying. That is why sometime (shock, horror) pilots have to fly real aeroplanes! And, if when they have finished doing that for the day, there is a bar adjacent, do you begrudge them a pint?

It's nice being a pilot Southy. Keep dreaming, buddy!;)

I do agree with you south with reference to reporting the facts, however they have used their paper to put a slant on it to the detriment of the armed forces. This was not an accident but a deliberate ploy to gain some headlines and therfore sell more papers, at our expense. I do not believe that any hack is the friend of the forces, they are in it for their own self esteem and to get a pay rise.
ps: what was her husband doing on a miltary aircraft?

It may well have evaded them, but that's hardly the point here and you're not doing yourself any favous by intimating that it is.

I agree with Southside: the issue here is that whilst there are British forces dying in Iraq/Afghanistan because they lack the correct kit, it's just a tad bewildering that a squadron in Norfolk has enough of a budget to take 6 jets to Aviano for a skiing weekend (allegedly). It is that incongruency that is the problem, and the tabloids and broadsheets have a right to point it out.

Scary, but I find myself agreeing with southside again. We can't claim poverty on one hand, and seen to be squandering money on the other. The reasons for the trip don't matter to them, it's just another story that sells papers.

S_H

Having organized elements of such landaways on the mighty Wokka, I can tell you that the cost of putting the crew up per night in a hotel equated to less than two minutes of rotors turning time. If you think that the money these guys spent on eating, drinking and sking did not come out of there own pockets (salaries and allowances), you are very much mistaken. It certainly didn't come out of the procurement budget.

I agree that the procurement and supply chain is in rag order but that is an irrelevance to this case. Stamping on training sorties with any sort of visible enjoyment to them (an over-reaction that I can see gradually gathering momentum) will not have any effect whatsoever on the availability of CBA or desert boots. Speculating on the cost of fuel is pointless too. Trg sorties will continue to happen as long as the RAF has manned aircraft, and if landaways are not conducted to enjoyable destinations, they will be conducted instead to rubbish destinations - all at virtually the same cost to the taxpayer. If the media can't understand this fact, much like that of low flying, then it is the media that must be educated. Let the PROs and CCOs spell out the facts to them, rather than the MoD/RAF capitulating to appease tabloid whines.

Before we get too heated, just remember that this story is tomorrow's fish and chip wrapper. Tomorrow some vacuous non-story, celebrity tittle-tattle,will hold the nation in thrall and this will be forgotten - until next time this story is dusted off by the editors.

Safety,

If then maybe we should not be concerning ourselves or changing our behaviour and policies based on their opinions.

Max

I think you're right, but this is the kind of thing that sticks in the public's mind, not the fact that we can't afford DAS for all of our aircraft.

S_H

Nope. 'Whether Ops are on or not, don't blatantly squander money'. Seem reasonable to you?

Deliverance

Frankly, i don't care what anyone else does - the USAF is spending $250m on each of the 300-odd F-22As it intends to buy, but that doesn't mean the RAF has to do the same, does it? And if you are of that school of thought, look at the way one of the richest Air Forces in the world does it: It's fairly common in the USAF for a two-ship to do an out-and-back, or RON, to somewhere only vaguely work related - but at least they cover their arses by giving the odd capes brief whilst there, or take a jet to PDM, or attending a conference or playing Red Air for another squadron etc. I have never heard of six-ship F-15s or F-16s buggering off to another country for absolutely no reason whatsoever (I am sorry, 'to get familiarity with foreign ATC').

With regards to the worth of the training at Aviano: had they gone during the week and worked with the Block 40 Vipers out there, then stayed the weekend and got pissed, shagged Italian birds and done some skiing, I wouldn't bat an eyelid. Why? because they could have done some DACT, or looked at the work the Yanks are doing with their Sniper pods, or a host of other things that could have given them something to come home with.
My opinion has nothing to do with rivalries between types (for the record, no, I am not Helos).

If you can tell me that the trip gave 6 Jag mates more than just some familiarity with foreign ATC, then I am open to conceding that you have a point. Beyond that, I've said what I think and will leave it at that.

Jags in Aviano
 

Aviano is a NATO training base including FAC training (Jags are SA as well as recce) and where which Jags I believe were based during the Bosnian conflict?? I was under cover in Sarajevo! Jag served us brilliantly for 30+ years so show them off one last time to NATO should be a privilage and so what peeps enjoy themselves, good grief that will never catch on in this NEW RAF , waste of money?? Lets look at poiliticians or MOD Procurement service? Well done 41 (F)

I can not understand why these "journalists" insist on filling their rags with something that you really can't class as news.

It is frankly getting a tad tiresome reading the inflated, twisted, inaccurate, sensationalist bolleaux printed about our boys every few weeks. :mad:

OTFs are invaluable and we carry them out for umpteen reasons that will never make the print in The Sun. That would justify the whole matter and Mr B E Lend would not get the pat on the back from his happy editor!

I totally agree. I am also certain that if squadrons were forced to abandon OTFs it would only add to the ever increasing problem of morale/retention.

To the "Lords and Airs" whom browse these threads...do not try and appease the misinformed public by cancelling OTFs. Instead try and use whatever methods possible to educate the public/politicians/Sun editor on the real reasons behind these training flights.

Anyone who has taken part in an OTF will realise the value they possess. They offer an opportunity to carry out some kinds of work just not possible in the UK, as well as some that is...in a different environment. In our "Expeditonary Air Force" it is vital to focus on operating overseas or in unfamiliar territory. This is made possible by the use of OTFs...or visiting Valley. ;)