Well anything to 'keep
em
happy' whilst the rest of us get on with our lives.

"B*ll*cks ! If anybody else did that they would be up on Fizzers"

NAROBS, you are talking out of your ar$e!

It is quite common for RW pilots to use fields etc that they have the landowners permission..for a start it stops any noise complaints! 16nm from Base, a field that hasn't been used before? Bit of a rarity these days so well-done! This Jon Lake (Tw@) appears to have no idea of RW Ops (is he bitter that nobody let him take a C130 home for the weekend..?) and should know better. Clearly HRH was with a QHI, the trip was authorised etc etc. The F1 soundbite is utter hoop; "celebs" are often to be found poncing around in the back of FJs in a much more unqualified state than someone who has actually done some formal flying instruction.

Will the roundheads let this go? Would they complain if that Simian Rooney (no, not the ex-CH47 mate...) had a go? Course not, working lad dun good an' all that...

This is starting to annoy me. Wales has been in the RAF 5 minutes and he is already making it a laughing-stock. According to the Sunday Times, Torphy is raging over the incident. The clowns involved in this should realise that this would make the papers, and that the whole story of a helicopter jolly undertaken by someone with no training or operational need that coincides with a stag night just stinks to high heaven. I hope Torphy lays into his subordinate commanders over this - too much to hope for a royal interview without coffee or a 1069 but one can dream.

Wales - P!ss off to the Navy and try and regain some respect. :=

As an afterthought, why didn't the royal twosome drop in on Headley Court or Selly Oak for a morale visit, even a hospital, hospice or charity?

And whoever made the decision to waste valuable Chinook flying hours on F/O Wales.

How distant was the Prince from his most recent pyss up? :=

It strikes me that, like most things in life, this is a matter of personal opinion.

If you are pro-royal then the....perfectly normal training flight, good PR, its the 'Royal' Air Force for goodness sake, we've all done it, get a life, etc..... arguements come out.

If you are anti-royal then it's the.....waste of time, taxpayers money misused, rich spoilt brats, etc ....... arguements.

Personally I am very pro-royal when starting from the Queen and working down, but become less and less impressed when we approach the younger generation of 'Royals'. I think Zara gets it right, but I'm afraid I can't say the same for the young Princes. Any sympathy they may have had due to the tragic loss of their mother has long since evapourated in my mind. I feel they have the give:take ratio wrong at the moment. They have many opportunitys to misuse their position, the mark of their character is whether of not they take or decline those opportunities.......

Standing by for any incoming ........

There had been a numbers of failures here in particular from Prince William, and the RAF who authorised this, in not realising how this would look to the public when it got out.. Why wasn't there someone prepared to say no to him?

When the forces rightly complain about lack of helicopters, which may be putting lives at risk, aren't people going to ask if that is so how can Prince William use one apparently as a private taxi?

I accept it was more than that and I'm sure there was training involved but it looks bad.

If only the Princes had a fraction of the common sense of the Queen.

Would this training sortie (presumably with a full crew of 4 on board) have still been flown at some point if Wills had not been there....yes.

Was it any extra effort to use a new field in the vicinity of Odiham...no.

Do some posters need a 'meerkat moment'....definitely! (Where you pull your heads out your ar$e and have a good look around you to see what's really going on).

PS: And how exactly is Jon Lake an 'RAF-trained' pilot. I mean, Air Cadets who got a few hours on Chipmunks in the 80's can claim to be 'RAF-trained'! (Like Jacko;)) Can anyone dish the dirt on Jonny-boy?

A lot of fuss about nothing.

If it gave HRH a good insight into aspects of tactical SH flying with the benefit of hands-on experience, a good thing too!

I would suggest that this is of arguably greater benefit to the RAF as a whole then qualifying an Air Vice Marshal to fly the Typhoon. What possible need could there be for that?

Does it really matter? It only takes twelve weeks to earn a set of RAF wings, even with time off to go skiing in Klosters. :E

Beat me to it BEAgs,

A few flying hours spent giving the future head-of-state an insight into the capabilities of his air force and at a the same time countering some of the institutional anti-RAF rhetoric he will have been exposed to in the Army is money well spent.

It is certainly better value than allowing some here-today, gone-tomorrow CAS to display his prowess by soloing in the latest wonder-fighter (and I don't really begrudge that either!)

Did the RAF not have any media-savvy people keeping any oversight of this whole project to prevent such own-goals?

Institutional anti-RAF rhetoric in the Army, BP?

You wait until he gets to the RN! :E

Yes, but he's now realised that the Navy's whole future is pinned on providing expensive mobile airfields for RAF aircraft :ok:

Anyway he's only going there to widen his circle (of friends). :E

F/O Wales was always going to have a different experience of life in the light blue than F/O Bloggs. HRH simply has to take the rough with the smooth...

Smooth - Wings after 13 weeks, skiing holiday included. At the stick of a Chinook on week 14.

Rough - Media / Public attention when he tries to earn himself a bl*w j*b token by landing in his girlfriends back-garden.

Bolk.

I've re-worded that last sentence 3 times but 'back-garden' always looks like a euphimism.

William Borrows etc
 

BEagle. I'm surprised at you. The fact is that this was p*** awful Pr for the Royal Air Force, and if the press reports today are accurate (for a change) then CAS should be sacking someone pronto. Who the h*** authorised these flights, with the obvious risk of comparison with Afghanistan shortage of Helo capacity? Jp

?

Comparisons are odious, none more so than in this silly story.