How do you know you're an Ascoteer?
 

A mate of mine recently commented on how I was a typical 'Ascoteer.' This got me thinking and in the spirit of a bit of New Year fun I am asking the question, "How do you know you're an Ascoteer?"
To start the ball rolling:
1. Some of your electrical items have two-pin plugs.
2. Your bathroom cabinet has the world's supply of a wide variety of anti-malarials.
3. There's a Weber in your back garden.
4. Not all your DVDs are Region 2...
5. ...Neither are all your DVD players.
6. Your copper jar is full of completely useless (if not restricted) coinage from a number of nations.
7. At least some of your tools in the shed came from Canadian Tyre.
8. There's Halloumi in the fridge.
9. Your stationery consists of Hotel notepads and pens. The more exotic, the better!
10. You now have a specific drawer called the "F**king Imprest/JPA Receipt Drawer!"
:)

You know where to get the strongest coffee on the planet.

Thirteen of you can't decide where to go for a beer/burger/lapdance so you shuffle around for hours until you find an Irish bar! :)

You wear your desert flying suit and Telic medal with pride, even though the closest you got to the FLOT was Al Udeid.

Mike's poor attempt at banter neither surprises you nor riles you.

1. You check in, rather than dig in.
2. 10% Carlos (in Lajes), Chris-the-son-of-Chris (in Akrotiri), Jean-Luis (in Dakar) and various other 'agents' greet you like a long-lost friend, find you the best rooms available and consign the Untermensch (pongos, fast jet pukes and the like) elsewhere.
3. You actually look forward to going to $hitholes like Gander, because you have an 'Auntie' who lives there....:eek:
4. You haven't spent a night in a tent since Officer Training days.
5. You haven't had to buy shampoo or shower gel for years.
6. All the drink in your booze cabinet is export strength.
7. You NEVER go U/S anywhere where you might be required to stay (or rather, 'exist') on base.....

Please tell me it's still so?

Your son has no street cred in the swing park coz he rides a 'Huffy' mountain bike !

BEagle.."You haven't spent a night in a tent since Officer Training days."

Not so these days I'm afraid !

Sorry, in that case you're not a real Ascoteer!

One simply doesn't do 'tents'....:eek:




Whatever those are....:hmm:

Tents...
 

BEagle:

If you foresee it getting ripped, it's a portent! Boom Boom.

Timex, it's an extent.

Any more?

CG

Oh, oh, If your reminisce about them they're past-tentse

Hat, coat...

Hmm, think my experiences tick all the boxes mentioned.

Result!

The only 'tent' a proper Ascoteer knows about is the Hotel Intercontinental....

Presumably those awful working class desert $hitholes offer room service?

****, I've paid (my own) real money to get out of a tent and stay in a hotel -THAT's ASCOTEERING!

How do you know if your a real ascoteer?
 

From my experience of AT, the ability to put yourself first, and your customers second normally sets you apart.

(waits for tumbleweed to exit stage right....)

How cute. A timely and fatherly reminder of our responsibilities as Ascoteers :rolleyes:

Anyway, back to the fun......

1) You bore everyone at the local BBQ with "Brandy Sours never taste the same outside of Akrotiri"
2) You become the worldwide authority on the quality of every BX in the world, e.g " The BX at Lajes is OK, but the one at Travis is huge and has IPOD's for only $50"
3) You start every sentence down route with "Well, the last time I was here..."
4) You can say hello / goodbye / thank you in most languages and use it at every opportunity with foreign ATC

More to follow....

Hmmm,

May 2001, Tristar to Brisbane.

3 Hours at Muscat, stood in the sand at the edge of an unlit parling bay at 3am.

Night stop in Singapore, different hotel to the crew, no explanation of transport for the following day, no arrangements for meals, nil.

Tristar then has a tire blow at Sydney (GE openly admits it could have made it back) followed by 6 day wait whilst 150 pax sit in a barracks.

How many more examples do you want?

Hundreds. And Im sure your all great at heart, but a word of warning, the RAAF used to opearte helicopters, and operated along similar lines to the way our AT fleet do (or don't dependant on viewpoint) business. They don't opereate helicopters anymore...the Army do.

Much as I think your all a bunch of money grabbing slackers, I'd rather you were operating the AT Fleet than the RLC/AAC, so be good chaps and get a grip.

I'll have a go at some kind of defence for them (even if they are / were 3*'s)

Firstly, Did you have a PRO / Senior person who was designated your POC on the trip for starters ? How often did they speak to you all as passengers ?That will determine how much of the mushroom effect you experienced.

3 hrs in Muscat. I assume it was a quick turn before heading off east some more ? Or was there some issue that they needed everyone off the jet while they worked it ? Maybe they expected the stop to be shorter than it was and risked running out of crew duty if the pax went into the terminal ? Maybe there was no support to move everyone at 3 a.m for the refuel ? In every case, I doubt very much if the crew's intentions were to try and f**k you over for the sake of it.

Different hoel to the crew is normal / preferred. When things go wrong, having 90 pax at your door asking when the planes going to be fixed and how they are going to get back for their rugby tournament is beyond your job. Never helps to have a load of pax out all night and waking you up 4 hrs before wheels in the hotel after the final night out before departing. RAFLO's deal with all this or in their physical absence, the Co / Loadmaster pays for all the rooms / meals and all this is explained to the PRO who should brief every pax. Has happened like that on every trip I've broken down on.

Tire blows on landing. GE reckons it could take off and make it back ? You sure you were speaking to the GE ? I'd laugh him out of the flight deck if he came up ther spouting sh!t like that. You blow a tire on the M4 at Bristol. You keep driving to London ?

6 day wait. Bearing in mind the time changes, I guess that's how long it took to call back to Brize, get the wheel, decide how to send it, get it out there, CLEAR CUSTOMS (which can be the biggest pain in the ass of it all) and then fit it. Given the state of our air force, 6 days for a tire to Sydney doesn't sound to bad ...

150 pax sit in barracks. I'm getting the feeling it's the "sit in barracks" part that's annoying you here. I'll say only this.

When I'm sat down the back, landing at an airfield with poor vis / bad weather / tricky crosswinds and with a crew that have potential crossed multiple time zones with minimum time on the ground, I never want the cost of that pilots hotel room to be a factor. $60 saved on putting them in the barracks also is a false economy when we lose an aircraft / lives due to fatigue. So, IMO, put them up in the Ritz for all I care. As long as they are in the best possible condition to land that plane and keep my life going, I'm happy.

Some of what you say is flannel, though some good explanations of subjects I am already aware of.

The point is, I am fellow aircrew and find it hard to either rationalise or explain/defend an AT crews atitude from time to time. I share the same colour uniform, supposed ethos and values.

If I find it difficult (not always) , what about the Army/RN/Civvies you carry?

Either you are stuck in the heydays, or you have a comms snag between yourselves and the customer. Your gonna have to confront one.

Anyway, I hope you all have a happy new year, wherever you are!

MGD

You know you're an Ascoteer when....

You realise that anyone and everyone can do your job much better than you, knows your GASOs and the intricacies of your ac performance to an above average standard and that having any type of AT ac or crew is an utter waste of time and money because you might as well get some CH47 crewman to fly the things on their day off. 'Cos that's what BA do, right?:hmm:

On the other hand, I realised I was an absolute cock when...

I started preaching to some harrier mates about medium level CAS and told some CH47 geezer how FDAD was much easier than they kept making out.

Anyway, back to the fun...

1. You pitch up at a civil airport and expect at least one of your crew to cause a scene at security because he's carrying a leatherman.

2. You know that any estimate of a GEs age should be reduced by at least 15 years to get anywhere near.

3. Anyone who tells you Gander is a good night stop is certainly a GE.

4. You've considered stealing your aircraft and flying to Brazil when it was full of drugs/money or maybe both!

5. Nothing the Royal Gurkha Rifles do in the back of the ac surprises you...

Rude Kid,

You know your an Ascoteer when your chopped from Valley or Shawbury.

MGD

PS: Sorry mate, busy for the next few days, you'll have to do your own job!

Like what ? I'll happily defend what I wrote.

Of course things will go wrong. Of course AT guys will screw up just like any other category of pilots. Of course the expected level of service we all think we're entitled to fall short sometimes, even more so when the AT fleet is working beyond it's means.

The problem is that people expect British Airway / Virgin schedule keeping / results on a military budget. Which doesn't fit.

So my question to you is surely someone from the same colour uniform and shared ethos and values is also able to recognise these points and not make a blanket statement about all AT pilots ?

I'm sure the guys that have been Comp A'd from overseas will have a different story (as the letter and cards of thanks that arrive on my Sqn weekly seem to show)

Moan moan moan
 

So you were upset by something 6 YEARS ago - nothing more recent?
Did the crew make you do this or was it a result of policy as enforced by somebody else?

Now I do know that is policy - again not decided by the crew, but I believe by DTMA, and correctly enforced by movement staff.

Did the GE offer an opinion that the tyre might have been ok? Or did he explain the engineering reference detailing the tolerance of blown tyres, and associated braking systems and clearly show how the a/c was safe to operate? And... would you rather a jet that would "make it back", or one that is fully serviceable.

But you know you're an Ascoteer when you've learned to live with whingers like that.

And you have a piece of string as long as your attic door is wide.

I'll keep biting.....

Rather be a chopped bus-driver than a never-tried-it bus conductor!;)

Note that your (sic) busy for the next few days, so will utilise the time to study up my big book of how to do other peoples jobs. That RTES stuff looks a right piece-of-piss...Maybe I can tell you a few things about it when you get back.

Or maybe I can tell you about being stranded by a CH47 on exercise once. I couldn't believe they didn't ring me directly to tell me they weren't coming to pick me up. Maybe they were looking for their aft pylon somewhere in the desert though.:E Still rubbish comms though!

lol

Singapore??? Fook me, 12 years odd at Lyneham and I've only ever seen it once... deadheaded in and out...
Sydney???? Never been there..... I'm clearly doing something very wrong :confused:

Not biting mind - someone bearing a grudge about not getting a wake up call six years ago? Brilliant!

You know you are an Ascoteer when;

Chocks are always between 2300 an 0300 coming or going.
You never landed at Akrotiri in the afternoon
You are not allowed to fly beyond 30W because MOD has run out of money
Lyneham runs out of 6mil charts for across the US
When on Argosies (what's that?) you knew the name of every mountain on the north Cento route
On Hercs you asked, "What mountains?" on the north Cento route
On Argosies it took you 4 days (Malta night stop, Akrotiri night stop, Teheran night stop)
to get to Bahrain, and you looked in awe? at a Herc man because "We can do it non-stop!!
When a Co could handle an imprest, giving you enough to have a good time and still hand you a fiver as you left the aircraft at home.

You know you're an Ascoteer when....

Listening to some FJ and RW guys talk about their Afghan experiences and how great they all are, you remind them that you were there 5 years previously and couldn't remember seeing them anywhere!!!

On a lighter note:-

1. You know the routing from the UK to Akrotiri without an ERC.
2. As a smoker you can always arrange to have the only smoking suite in the 5* hotel.
3. You can make $10 of chips last long enough to drink your own body weight in Long Island Ice Teas.
4. You can find the only nightclub/w***ehouse in American Samoa.
5. You let purile banter go over your head because everbody else is jelous and you get a free ATPL!

:ok:

You know you are an ascoteer when you can remember the old days when the loadie did the DF draw on days trips to Europe. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're not a true ascoteer.

You know you're an Ascoteer when:

1. You can enter into a bit of mildly self-depreciating banter whilst all the time remembering its just in the name of fun.

2. You can ignore the willy waving, 'I've been in the desert longer than you', 'You guys annoy me because.....' diatribes and enjoy your first New Year off ops since 2003.

You know you're an Ascoteer when:

You remember when it was Transport Command (and the AOC 38 Gp wore the medal he won on the Dams Raid).

You know you're an Ascoteer when:

You know where Gateway House is but have never set foot inside.

Yeah whatever.

have a good new year.

MGD

Most of you Ascot types know this, but there are two types of Army customer, and they will;

1. Get stuck somewhere on an AT Flight, convince the Responsible Officer that it makes sense for everyone to be in the same Hotel as the Aircrew, as anyone can be uncomfortable. Good time had by all.

2. Get stuck somewhere on an AT Flight, immediately lose any sense of command responsibility, spend hours in a transit lounge because that's what everyone else does, develop a burning hatred for anyone and anything that ever came out of Brize/Lyneham and spend the next 22 years whingeing about how crap the RAF are.

All it takes to be type 1 is balls and a sense of responsibility, all it takes to be type 2 are matching chips on each shoulder and a desire to drag everyting down to the lowest common denominator when it comes to comfort.

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

'Fraid that goes for all types of "customers" - not just Army - including those that ought to know better. It is ironic that on this occasion the loudest moaning is coming from a part of the Air Force that the Army are often just as disparaging about, with many of the same accusations.

Im sorry Brain.

I won't voice my complaints in future, as I should obviously know better. I'll just await the day when the AAC/civvies take me to the Stan.

Rest assure if the day does arrive, you will all have jobs as personal shoppers. Might need to work on your customer services skills, as not everyone will realise that you know best 100% of the time.

What will we do with all those chopped from FJ/Rotary? I suppose Ops Support will always need people to sharpen pencils.

Quote:
'Anyone who tells you Gander is a good night stop is certainly a GE.'

Or UKMAMS/ 1AMW...:}

Tarbaby,

Please enlighten us, what's the Cento route?

You know you're an Ascoteer when...

1. You momentarily consider buying a ride-on lawn mower when on holiday with the wife. Then realise 20 kgs baggage allowance won't quite cut it.

2. You've force-fed at least 20 'white-box-fruit cakes' to a mates dog/co-pilot.

3. You know not to bother calling Ascot Ops when you need help...

GEs Wallet
 

When your hole in the wall PIN number becomes redundant:D

When it's New Years Eve again and you are still in the same s**thole that you arrived in 6 years ago!

I look forward to when SH are flown by the Army and FJ are flown by the Playstation generation - you'll all still need to get where you're going and be re-supplyed and flown home!!!!

Happy New Year