Station or base?
 

Wonder if anyone else is as sad as I clearly am. (Rhetorical question, thank you.)

But is anyone else as irritated as I am that the meeja, both broadcast and print, seems unable to recognise that the Royal Air Force resides on ‘stations’, not ‘bases’? And that people, and aircraft, are ‘stationed’ at Much Binding in the Marsh, not ‘based’ there.

If this were not the case, what would we call the staish - can’t call him/her the base, surely? And what about the SWO, which runs off the tongue much better than a BWO? Come to think of it, what would replace the standard phone greeting “Station farm, duty pig speaking....”?

I speak, of course, as a member of the aforetomentioned meeja, and I have tried with various editors of my ken to get them to change their ways, but they don’t seem to care.....

Being also, these days, an ex-RAF old buffer - I wonder, does it still matter?

airsound

Airsound - Being an ex as well I don't think anyone cares!

I agree in general. That said, after an exchange tour I took to using 'base' because I thought I sounded hip and different. I then grew up.

Easy test : 'Base Hangar' or 'Station Hangar' ? One definately sounds better!

Does it matter ? No. Not to me. And not to 99.9% of those in I would wager.

Would love to sit around and debate the issue in the Mess, after my hour long lunch, possibly write a letter to the editor of the Torygraph and wait with baited breath at my 9-5 job for a reply.

But off to the desert next week and back out again 6 weeks later. So won't.

No one's around to care, notice or do anything about it anyway :ok:

Will leave it to the ex RAF old buffers's to do :ok:

The correct term is of course 'Station' but it seems more traditional for the junior ranks to use the term 'Camp'. It's not just the media that can't get it right, the average 'playstation generation' JO usually gets it wrong too!

OK, this one has always bothered me...when did the names change from "RAF Station Blah-blah" to just "RAF Blah-blah?" Use the latter and people just look at you weird, but is it not more correct?

Just wundering...:}

Cheers! M2

Main Operating Base, Forward Operating Base

Station used to signify the admin REMFs location.

What's more, why are they always in such palpably obscure places? With such aw-what-a-nice-place-for-a-holiday names? Bentley Priory? Church Fenton? Kirton-in-Lindsey?

I presume there is some security or noise-abatement reason that they're always out in the sticks.

Regards,

Phil

RileyDove
Another test: 'Station bike' or 'Base bike? They both go about the same, IIRC.

I think they put them out in the sticks so they would be harder for the German fifth column to find. Imagine going up to a native Norfolk type and asking where Little Snoring was - he'd know if you were born more than 15 miles away from the minute you opened your mouth, so then he'd shove his pitchfork up your @rse, and march you off to PC Plod.

And you think I'm joking :}

And of course DOB and then we have FOL as Location.

It is spelt out in AP3002. Sad but true.

Too Camp Or Not
 

;)
I would think that the term Camp transferred to the RAF from the RFC in 1918. The term Station proberbly came from the Royal Naval Air Station. I have lived and worked on RAF Establishments for just under 60 years and have always used the word 'Camp' as an informal term for an RAF Station. It is not just used by new boys but by all. Some stations have East Camp and West Camp, eg St Athan. It is a convenient administarative label which was in use widely since before WWII. My father, who enlisted in 1935 and served for 36 years always used the term. I have lived in quarters at 'Transit Camps' (Properly known as PTCs Posting Transit Centres) - Croft and Warton. I'm not sure when the term 'Base' came into use but there was a Base Hangar at Lyneham (Britannias) in 1967. I suppose camp means a temporary settlement really.

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

Thought we had to read SROs not BROs

There was a computer game which mistakenly used the American "Wherever AFB" to refer to "Marham RAF" once, which was particularly amusing.

P

I won't lose any sleep over this either way, but I'm quite happy having a different naming convention to the Spams. Station works fine for Light and Dark blue. What do the AAC boys call home?

I get far more annoyed with the media referring to airmen serving (and being killed) in Afghanistan/Iraq as troops or even soldiers. :ugh:

Just a little trivia, but they are only 'AFBs' if they are in the US, outside of the US they are simply 'ABs' (e.g. Ramstein, Bagram, etc); except of course in the UK...

Cheers! M2

A basha, or if in range of enemy arty/bombers, a trench :E

Going back to wierd and wonderful station names, Weston Zoyland has to one of my favourites...