OK Mal,

Miserable bean counters wouldn't let me put School Dinners' membership fee on exes as in their opinion is was not the type of "Learned Insitute" they had in mind. Still, had a few good bashes while it lasted.
Thread jack end.

Have spent 31 months of my life in the FI !!!!!

Tour 1 in 1983 at Cara Cara as a newly promoted Fg Off. Lots of shift work where we used to amuse ourselves playing cards and hiding from the Infantry who were really scary. Spent most of my free time refuelling various helicopters as they passed through. We used to advertise fish and chips on the radio, they were like flies round sh!t. Swapped 200 fags for 20 minutes low level in a lynx...those were the days. The Wokkas were a godsend, especially with the blue bags on board. We lived in a croft which doubled as the medical centre. Managed to get a flush toilet working but is soon got clogged.........with sweetcorn. Had a working bath at one point but the water was full of small fresh water shrimp, so food and a good wash :E Finally, looked at how much the spares for the AR3D cost: £30.00 for a roll of bodge tape. Good old British Industry.:ok:

Tour 2 as SOpsO at Mt Kent. Miserable sh!thole of a place. Best bit was 'fat boys' at 9.00pm every night. The Chefs came round each Mess with trays of sandwiches!!:ok:

Tour 3 1999-2001 as OC 303SU based at MPA. Much better place when you are there with the family living in a brand new FMQ. My daughters still talk about it (in a good way). They saw Albatross building nests, hundreds of seals etc and too many Penguins to count. Loads of flying too with Bristows and the little red FI Taxis. Two X Xmas as well where the weather was boiling and we had BBQ'd Ostrich, Kangaroos, Prawns and Crocodile tails! On the first one CBFFI thought it would be a jolly good idea to fly around all the remote sites on Christmas day saying hello to the troops. I was dragged along. Poor sods all had to stand there looking grateful when all they wanted to do was get the party started.

Now a civvy and will never set foot on the place again, unless I win the lottery in which case I may well stop by on the luxury liner taking me to sunnier climates.

Happy Days.

Wyler,
nice to hear positive comments about the Islands, anyone there on tour should always make the effort to get away from the job and enjoy the Islands. Everyone who makes the effort to get away from work and the bars and has a look around comes back far more postitive for it. Lets face it there is more sunshine and less rain than most of the UK.

It must have been a real holiday for you chaps on Alice

http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n...CE-BLOKES1.jpg

It looked far more fun on Adam

http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n...AM-BLOKES1.jpg

October '00.

There was a Yank in the tower at Lakenheath in about 1978 whose "proud" boast was that he'd never been outside the base except for the bus ride in from Mildenhall when he arrived. I commented, politely, that this was a bit strange, their comment was that the LN SATCO thought he was effin nuts and was being sent to see the shrinks.

It was either Alice or Byron who at some time between the late 80s-early 90s, made a point of bringing a tray of tea and biccies out to the Chinook, while the tatties and slabs were being offloaded. It was a nice touch. It was unfortunate however, when I had just received the tray and placed it on the jump seat, that the L/H seat (perhaps in desperate need of a piss) casually reached across and released the jump seat, sending the whole lot crashing to the floor/centre console (aircraft turning and burning). I'm pretty sure that it was you Mal, though much alcohol has muddled the brain since.

Bloody hard work, but very happy days.

As I said, my first tour was in 83 at Cara Cara (Cape Orford). Way to the west and only accessible by helicopter. We had some Blowpipe with the RA for daytime protection and a Platoon of Infantry for night time protection.
Bored one day, I put up a notice stating that their would be a bus trip to Stanley the following Sunday. Lunch and beers at the Goose and then 2 hours for shopping before home. All the Infantry put their names down.:rolleyes:
Even more disappointing was the amount of time it took to explain that it was a joke.:ugh:
I had my 23rd birthday there and a new cocktail was invented in my honour: The Cara Cara (original!!). It was 1 part brandy to 4 parts south sea lemon fizzy drink. The added extra was to put in a splash of Bennolin cough mixture. It was surprisingly good until we were inspected by the Med people because we were using 10 times as much cough mixture as anywhere else on the islands.:E

The place was named after the Cara Cara Eagle and we actually had one that used to queue up with us at meal times.:D

On November the 5th we had a big bonfire with soup and hotdogs. Great until the Army (again) chucked a load of blank ammunition on it. := Lots of Ooooohs and Aaaaahs though.

We had a communal crapper as well. I learned about small talk from that. :ooh:

Like I said, Happy Days.:ok:

Golf Bravo Zulu
 

GBZ.

Soz my post should have said MV Lycaon was a Russian BUILT ship which I seem to remember she was. As you rightly point out she was sailing under British colours. Thanks.

I was part of the Mt Alice build roulement, like Mal, living on the Corato and being forced to watch Caddyshack every night!

The Cape Orford radar, I believe, was lifted by callsign L4C, Bob G, a well known ex-Wessex pilot who enjoyed playing the RAF marchpast over the radio during a rejoin to Kelly's Garden.

I can well remember L4C, chasing the poor old sapper driving the CSB around the bay, just because he could. Fred Cross was our live-on Gazelle pilot.

Some kent stuff on you tube
 

This is floating around youtube.. BBC Breakfasts video from 1986, with a few lads captured picking their mail up..YouTube - Mount Kent, Falklands - BBC Breakfasts program 1986

Aaaaaargh - The Puffin Club!
 

That film's from about end Jul - early Aug, I would guess. Several of the guys in the film were still there when I pitched up in the middle of Sep.

Had travelled in civvies from the UK and got off the Timmy, found my kit and straight onto an Eric, only to be deposited in a filthy wet bog 20 mins later. Then up the hill and into the murk in a muddy BV - my chinos and brown brogues were never the same again!

Most of the skids had names, like the one in the film. Mine didn't, so I christened it Dunbonkin - and it still had the name on it when I went back on a short visit 6 years later.

The bit about preferring to stay on the mountain was very common. I hated MPA, which I thought was a cold, soulless, unfriendly, self-absorbed nest of utter nobs. I went to Byron for my R&R.

If I recall correctly, when we hooked the loads from Stanley going up to the building site site as it was we worked with 53 Sqn RE commanded by Maj. Plant!

Lycaon was indeed British registered and was one of the STUFT ships taken up and the first to arrive in the area in April 82.

I did two tours at MPA, in '94 and '96, and can reassure you it was not as you thought. It's just that you moutain boys had your mates up there and we had ours in the lowlands. Wednesday quiz night in the Sgts mess were always excellent as was the impromtu karaoke afterwards. Many happy memories and when I find the pics I'll post some up.

I have to say though that I had one EXTREMELY good dining in night up at Kent in '94.

:)

cheers chaps.

Hi guys and Mal.... my first post here.. such great memories of the Op Cara-cara and shepherd times, always jousting with Lima 4 cuddles because L4E was so much better...changing the rock at tiswas everytime. Though we weren't the ones who went for lunch on the beach and then fund the APU wouldn't start and used a bigger CB to get it started. As for the radar guys...Cape Orford was the only place other than Baltic Ferry to get real fish and chips from!! Respect to all ex and current chinook operators :D

There was a video on YouTube called- Tour of Duty 'The Re-make' that showed some footage of Alice from a couple of years ago. It had a mixture of ground stuff and fly pasts.
Sadly the link does not work any more.

Edited to add, this is a short clip from the vid.
Playing Chicken With A C130 Hercules Aircraft Then It Disapears - Video

I have a DVD copy (poor) of a VHS tape of Mount Alice if some one wants and/or can put a cop on line.

I also have a copy of QRA ops from LU and some South Georgia Islands footage from a C-130 trip. I got from an old F4 nav, apologies I can't remember his name.

easy job
 

i was one of the 4 original operators who sailed down with it chinooked it off an lsl (fun trip that was ) and got it up and running way before you moved it