Damn these are good yarns - I am so sad I never had the mis-pleasure. It sounds to me like you were the last bastion of the real airforce - work (fairly hard) play really hard.

I didn't realise the forestry commission got involved. If it was the same job as mine above, it was Lance with the fire axe!!

Twas on the mighty Wessex mate!
And I can name the crewman, rumour is that he carried a female passenger one day WITHOUT getting engaged to her!?
lsh

Ish - you are a bad boy...
 

Remember the mighty fat one called 'Blobby'? Oh how we p@ssed him off and embarrassed him at the Sqn lunch in the Mess when his 'fatness' stood up to give a pompous speech when a blow up (inflated) Mr Blobby popped out from the ceilling tile behind him and whilst it dangled around the ceiling everyone larfed and he got redder and redder - oh wonderful stuff!!

Remember the Blobby load - painted pink with yellow spots....Christ what a stack of stories one could tell......and I might let a few cats out of the bag...having been in the place on and off since 1969 with multitudinous 6-week dets on Wessex, Pumas and Chinooks until final 2-year tour on Wessex ending 1995...priceless but what fun it was...Nobby you were a complete star..

PS: Can I have my hat back please..

Having done that for many nights (although we never announced it on the radio) we finally got stood down because the aircraft went u/s. We retired for "a quiet Pimms"; of which I had never drunk more than one before. More people arrived and joined us outside, it was a rare, balmy night and rapidly a huge Pimms pi$$ up somehow developed ( I think we must have been buying), mainly on the small patio/path outside the bar window. We soon drank the mess dry of the stuff; gallons of it. Someone was sent out and more appeared from the NCOs mess. I vaguely remember deep stainless steel trays of the stuff being proffered from the bar window ledge. :yuk:

Next day I woke with the world's worst hangover, still wearing my brand new white shirt. At that time it had become quite rare for me to be in civvies in the evenings, normally we were off to work then so I didn't usually get to drink much and I wasn't used to it. Staggering to the loo I realised my skin hurt. I looked in the mirror and saw I was covered in blood patches, front, rear and face, and my shirt had dozens of holes. I then noticed many thorns sticking out of the blood patches. I had allegedly tried to climb in through the bar window, someone moved the wall and I fell headfirst into the thorn hedge below, from where my colleagues thoughtfully pulled me out backwards after they had stopped laughing.

I was later advised that I should make a point of apologising to the Sqn Ldr (WRAF) dentist. I did and she told me that she had actually enjoyed the evening. Never did find exactly out what I was apologising for but I was too embarrassed to ever go for a dental check up in NI.

Ah yes, they were the days. :O

Cornish

It was an ace first tour...we certainly worked hard..1300hrs in two years...but my did we play hard too:ok::}:cool:

Critical Mass in the bar

Setting fire to Matt N's chest hair

Stealing the AAC mess furniture during their dinner night...including some lovely paintings..then demanding a case of Champers to get it back..:E

Currently bored fartless in Turkey...please send me a jet...please:{

Bearing in mind the season, didn't you mean to say:

"Currently bored fartless in jet...please send me a turkey...please.

;)

:ok::}:p:cool::E

Hans Mun.... and Wayne G...... carrying loads to build the G outposts. Their crewman was the Nav Paul Wess** (Brain the size of Jupiter but the last in the queue for common sense). Working all morning dropping loads direct off the hook then had to use an 8 ft Strop (point of note: there was a techie sitting in back of aircraft). The normal routine of the boys was 'them up front' zoom in drop load get 'clear 'from the crewman and f**k off sharpish. This time they go in with the first load on the strop. Paul Wess** forgets what the string is for at the end of the strop (light line), and not knowing what else to do with it ties it around his wrist!!!!!! The techie is not on headset but is already alarmed by the blatant act of stupidity. The boys go in and drop the load and are steadyish in the hovver waiting for the crewman to say 'clear, get the **** outta here', but silence! What they cannot see is Paul has been dragged down the load pole hatch and only his legs from the calf up remain inside. Paul cannot tell them as he cannot reach his mictel lead switch. Paul also knows that any second the boys are just gonna go and it is not going to be good. The arm and the day were saved by the techie who unstrapped and tapped Hans on the shoulder and pointed down the back. Hans just sees Pauls feet sticking out the loadpole hatch:eek: Mayday.

That evening Paul got very drunk, going around the mess saying 'I nearly died today" we then find him asleep in a similar bush to the one Shytorque slept in in the post above. He was so disgruntled that we woke him up that when we got him back in the porta cabin he ran out of his room with a brown sealed envelope (he was going back to Gut the next day). He waves the envelope in front of Hans and me and screams 'you see these Sofarover, these are my medical docs, and in the morning I am going to tell the SMO that you did this....", he then proceeded to tear up his entire medical history whilst laughing and cackling! Hans and I exchange a stare and then pi** ourselves laughing. Our hero was seen the next morning at 7am, on his knees on the floor in the corridor with blood red eyes trying to celleotape together the 100 pieces of paper in front of him muttering the words, 'why am I such a tw*t sometimes":}:}

...The dirty protest conducted by a 'little worse for wear' crewman...

...'Orange Whip'....

...Wall murals in 'The Street' ('British Bulldog' my favourite, well done Harry)...

...Stn Tannoy in the Street rewired to a hi-fi for parties...

...S*** G*** letting off an orange smoke in his room which changed the colour of the white melamine furniture...

...The bouncy castle tested to it's limit when jumped on from the roof of a portakabin...

..The Tricolour drink...

...The Disaster Bar-B-Q (****ferbrains and my car written off)...

...Wessex Water Bombing...

Having flown many times as a passenger of the Wessex and Lynx picking us up from Carrickmore it's great to hear these tales.
Two questions,around 83-84 who bounced the wheel of the Wessex off the sangar roof at Carrickmore,scared the crap out of me as I was in it at the time,and there was one Wessex pilot who flew wearing brown cowboy boots, everyone strapped in rather tightly when we saw them as the flights were always "interesting"did everyone think he was nuts or was it just us.

Seafury, if that "dirty protest" was courtesy of the late DW I shared the bloody portakabin with him and boy did it whiff :eek:

Hueymeister.........
 

1300 hrs in 2-years - what took you so long?
Happy days for sure

RUCAWO, cowboy boots? Probably Lex and if so, yes, you were right in your worries :p .

Knocking a tri-colour off the top of a telegraph pole for the troops near Y453. The next day a similar pole booby trapped went off like a rocket.

Duty Auth, phone call " one of you ac has crashed into river at L Derry!" No, just a bit of "low level" FOLA bridge dodging in the fog.

Crew fly back to ALD for late tea, leave later back on task, night engine fail! Safe on ground.....Medals No.. but a bit of fuel would be nice.

Chrimbo day night, OC 72 bends aerial on fenceY453. "That will have been you then!" He says.......Yes sir......I say. might get a good posting!

The glorious new paint scheme, Air defence grey shame they glowed in the dark, quick paint them black, blue any other colour.

etc etc

true story about 'Gentleman John' and Ken Dodd.......
 

Now this was in the 'good old Wessex days' in the 70's..........'Gentleman John' (GJ) was a thoroughly nice, well-mannered, Mr Perfect-type Wessex crewman tasked to act as crewman to a VIP namely THE Ken Dodd who was entertaining the troops around the province and 72 Sqn was tasked to fly him around.
GJ was the crewman for the various VIP trips (don't remember who the jockeys were). He was renowned for doing everything correctly.
eg on a VIP trip you were meant to close the door to reduce the amount of dust flying about the cabin, remain on the long lead within the cabin (a pain) and stay secured to the 'monkey harness' for the trip (why?).

The rest of us used to leave the door ajar to assist with the nav, unplug the long lead and plug into the short cabin lead, unhook the monkey harness and secure ourselves into a seat belt for the trip.

So whilst doing everything properly and correctly after takeoff, GJ closed the cabin door and sat forward of the door in the crewman's seat, remained on the long lead and stayed secured in his monkey harness attached to an anchor point under his seat.

Ken Dodd was sitting in the seat opposite the door.

They had climbed to about 500' when GJ decided he needed to look outside to help with the nav. As he lifted out of his seat forward of the door to change to the seat aft of the door, he used the cabin door jettison handle for extra leverage and surprise surprise the door jettisoned and out into the slipstream 10' below the aircraft was GJ swinging gaily outside the aircraft 500' above the NI greenery!!.

Being the correct person he was, his first reaction was to say:

''Crewman to Captain''
"Yes John?"
"I don't wish to alarm you...but I'm hanging under the aircraft!"
"Whaaat?"
"Yes the door jettisoned and I've fallen out of the aircraft! and I'm swinging underneath in my monkey harness" :\
"FFS!"

John then gave a very accurate height-only talk down into a farmer's field and walked out from under the aircraft just before the wheels touched!!

Ken Dodd was in a state of shock (understatement!) and grabbed John's chinagraph and wrote on his kneepad:
"I trust there will not be a repeat performance!"
Wasn't GJ lucky that he stayed on the long lead and the monkey harness otherewise it may have been a completely different ending!
Footnote: It is understood that Ken Dodd's hair style was a direct result of this incident.....:)

Were the "bus stop" and "waiter" in the radio bay also part of the "Doddy" affair?

Remember what was written on the hangar roof?
RAFP stood under it for years in blissful ignorance!

"Gibbo" was having a (nother!) bad day at the Yellows, overslept, woken by Ops.
Collects kit "on the hoof" as he passes: Rifle, LSJ, toolkit, navbag, helmet, etc, etc.
DA was "Challenger" and as "Gibbo" rushes past:
"Gibbo what time do you call this"?
"Bloody quick time Sir, I were asleep 10 minutes ago"
He settles into the back of the already running "cab", reclines on the seat and sleeps.
"It seemed like only a minute later and we were there, the troops opened the door, closed it, sat-down, strapped-in and tapped the pilot on the leg, then we took off"
Hardly surprising it "only seemed like a minute", it was!!
They were collecting the ARF from the camp at Aldergrove!

lsh
:E

That reminds me of the spoof put on for the late Harry Secombe, also there to entertain the troops. This involved a "bus stop". the Wessex was landed somewhere in the middle of nowhere to pick up a "waiting passenger".

I can't remember the full details; can anyone recall the story?

Not in NI, but I was promised the task of flying the lovely Carolyn Seaward, who was "Miss Great Britain. She cried off and I got her replacement, Tommy Vance, who had been out on the lash with the staff at BMH Hanover. Not a pretty sight! He nearly crapped himself when we had a birdstrike and we landed to check the aircraft, and again when the nose bay black bodge tape started flapping against the panel like machine gun fire! :E

Ish .....
 

Naah, the "bus stop" and "waiter" malarky was with Harry Secombe and was hilarious but I've now got "scribblies' wrist" :eek:
I'll leave that to another time or to someone else who knows..........:E

"Scribblies wrist" eh..........!
lsh
:E

Or possibly a bit of "cramp" :E

Harry Secombe's bus stop episode was in the mid 70s.
A Wessex was tasked to pick him up from Ballykelly and bring him to Aldergrove. One of 72s pilots, dressed in scruff order, went along as an extra passenger. On the way there they dropped him off on some deserted hillside complete with a bus stop sign and 9mm. pistol.
En route from Ballykelly the crewman inform H S that they were giving a lift to somebody. They landed, after a short search, and picked up this bloke waiting at a bus stop. He sat opposite HS and they were on their way.
Apparently HS was getting more and more worried because this hitchhiker was acting strangely and was fingering what looked like an automatic under his coat. However when all was explained he saw the joke.
The pilot involved was not at all happy standing on a hillside with just a 9mm. for company especially not knowing precisely when, or if, the Wessex would be back. He survived and later on in civil life flew the Pope around and the last I heard he was driving S92s in Brunei.

One of our pilots lounging in his room in the, then, new portacabins. A knock at the door. It's a Works & Bricks bloke who has come to fix a blockage in another room and would he go along as security. Our hero goes along and sits on the bed to watch the plumber does his stuff.
The plumber undoes both ends of the S trap and carefully, as it is brimming with dirty water, lifts it up and pours it down the sink.
He looks down at his now sodden toecaps, turns to our pilot and says. "I'm sorry about that, it must be the Irish in me."

The U-bend incident was 1975 IIRC.
That would be before the hot summer evening which was livened up a bit when some abandoned belts of .303 began cooking off in a rubbish skip in Ally Pally. A mysterious event , which was then followed closely by a RR Land Rover screaming out to its post via the security gate , which happened to be closed at the time.

Fareastdriver- good effort but there was much more to it than that...
 

Prior to departing Aldergrove the crew had decided to spoof Harry bigtime! Filthy Lu@ar (FOLA Ldr!) dressed as a Mess Steward and had a serving tray, bottle of gin, tonics, lemon slices, ice cubes, napkins and glasses. Another member of the FOLA (probably Tim J) was kitted out with a long overcoat, long woollen tricolour scarf, a temporary Ulsterbus bus stop, a dodgy hat and a copy of the Irish Times. They departed Aldergrove and deposited the spoof bus stop and dodgy-looking passenger on top of a sugarloaf-type 'mountain' en route to Ballykelly. On landing at Ballykelly the 'steward' hid himself in the radio bay at the back of the cabin (where the goblins lived!) and buttoned down the radio bay curtain. Harry duly arrived and was put on i/c. They took off and 5 mins into the trip Harry was asked if he fancied a G&T. "Yes please" replied a surprised but delighted Harry. The radio bay curtain was unbuttoned and out popped a pristine looking Mess Steward aka 'Filthy' and poured the G&T. "Would you like ice and a slice Sir?" "Yes please" says Harry hardly able to contain his delight at this unexpected pleasure. The spoof steward disappeared back into the radio bay and the curtain was buttoned and Harry sipped away at his G&T. Ten mins later casual aircrew chat ensued; "I wonder if there is anyone at the bus stop today?" "Dunno but I heard that the bloke they picked up last week looked a bit dodgy". "Yeah I heard that too anyway you can't leave anyone out here on their own so we'll go and have a look" They flew to the bus stop, cabin door open so Harry can see and at the bus stop is a 'dodgy' looking character thumbing a lift. "I think we'd better pick him up but I don't like the look of him much. If he gives you any trouble crewman just sort him out". Harry is all eyes by now! They land beside the bus stop the passenger boards the aircraft carrying the temp bus stop and the copy of the Irish Times and is shown a seat by the crewman and straps himself in. The look on Harry's face when the dodgy pax starts reading the Irish Times is priceless! They duly arrived at Aldergrove and Harry is thanking everyone when the IDs of the spoof players was revealed. He howled with laughter!! :D
Great stuff - it ain't what it used to be that's a fact.........
FOLA - Flying Officer's Liberation Army

:ok:Wasn't JJ behind all that? Happy memories of Y453. Do any of you remember the camera-carrying civvie round the HLS in the mid/late 90s - and the occasional Op Blobby task to Y441? The two Wx tailwheel dings on the east fence (STANO who became 2IC 72 and CO72 who became Staish RAFA? I have the evidence and might post the odd photo if yr interested? Great stuff.

Phamousphotograher.....
 

Yeah get 'em posted matey! :}

Think I might have been down the back for one of those.......:eek:

You're ruddy lucky I remembered that much.

Another Xmas Tree
 

Dec 92 or 3, can't remember these days. Tasked to fly senior chaplain for the day to greet the troops as they are picked up out of the field. Nice chap, quiet as a mouse and didn't bother us all day.

So quiet in fact the front end forgot he was there and decided to aquire 72's Xmas tree on the way home.

Dispatch plucky crewman of short stature with fire axe and he disappears for a considerable time before staggering back pulling a tree fit for Trafalgar Square. Having forced it in through the door and all the way back into the tail boom he squeezes in and plugs back in.

Conversation as follows:

Stupid. Hey xxxxxxx, I know you're a short arse but you didn't have steal such a sodding great tree.

xxxxxxx. I might be a f'ing dwarf but I've got a hugh c***.

Polite cough over the intercom

Pause

xxxxxxx. ooops, sorry Bish

After a quiet trip home he thanked us for an interesting day out; great tree though.

Happy Bear
 

Quiet night and classic moment courtesy of 5 Regt:

On flight safety:

"I'm a happy bear"

"I'm a happy bear to"

"Another happy bear"

" This is xxxxxxx; this is a flight safety frequency. Out"

Pause 2, 3

" He's not a happy bear"

First of a few
 

:cool: XV728'A' on quarry lift out to the sticks. 20th October 1995. Note forlorn barrel in foreground. Apart from the short comms mast at left of Buzzard Cell / Ops roof, nothing remains. All demolished & rubble cleared c. 3 years ago.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...PhamPhotog.jpg

Thus
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...Phamphotog.jpg

The famous Pizza Delivery service...DR only got so much because Fran would often deliver them...brightening up the bar no end...

The Banana House, all the Scalextric..

Almost knocking Daffy over wazzing an Island we'd dropped him off on in the middle of lower lough erne...got the photos at home....will post them post xmas

EESDL...had you been less of a work-shy-fop you'd have got more hours..stby for FLAK..:E

Phamousphotographer........
 

Excellent photog - brought back stacks of memories of the mighty Wessex. But I thought you were going to show dents in the fence made by the mighty ones? :)

PS: Timely posting as it was '#72'!!:D

Fence Dings
 

First one to hand, so not the clearest. XR499'W' lifts from the n spot on 2nd Nov 1994 and the two strikes are below the fuel jettison pipes & cabin door. CO72 did the rh one in the shadow of the fence post and I think POD cut out the section, mounted it on a hardwood plinth and presented it to the Boss at his leaving do?http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...PhamPhotog.jpg

Brilliant! Keep 'em coming. If you need to know how to post photos then I think Beagle or Jackonico are your boize for the advice - Thanks v much....

A few from Carrickmore 1983-84.



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ny/22sk043.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ny/22sk051.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/sniperUK/72.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/sniperUK/72c.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ny/22sk044.jpg

Thats brought back a few memories, Co. Tyrone looks almost picturesque!!??

Remember when the practice loads were iced on to the concrete - you pulled how much torque?!

On my first BBK we did put a "slice" in a hedge with the tailrotor!
I was looking forwards when I should have been looking backwards.
Well, a Puma NEVER did that, and if it did you were done!!
"Operating hazard" said OC72, so I lived to f**K up again.

"Gimlets" Op:
He had a rather nasty complaint, so they operated and laid a tube in.
Thus he lost all the "rifling in his barrel", sprayed everywhere and the safest place was, according to him, dead ahead!
Was in the bar when he rushed-in, all smiles:
"Ground run & serviceable, just needs an airtest now"!

thars moor!
lsh
:E

Photos
 

Cracked it, ta. Thanks for the commendation. Might visit the Mill next. Good Carrickmore stuff RUCAWO, but keep the stories coming too.

One dark Saturday night we were tasked to land at a very remote location, for a "local" task briefing, a place with a rocket fence and lots of wriggly tin. We shut down and walked around the outside tried to find the door; we weren't familiar with the place as we hadn't landed there before; it wasn't one of our usual places and wasn't in the LS directory. It was all in total darkness. We eventually found what we assumed was the door with some trouble, as we had actually landed on the opposite side of the compound.

One of us tapped on the tin door. No reply. We banged louder. Still no reply. We discussed what we should do next. While we were talking, there was a slight sound from just inside the compound's door.

"Hello!" said the crewman. "We're here to speak to the boss!" Next came the unmistakeable sound of a weapon being cocked.

"Er.... hello, er....whoa, hang on, it's the helicopter crew!" said our man :ooh:

"What effin' 'elicopter is that then?" :suspect:

"Er, it's the ** ****, we've come for the task briefing......"

Door opened slightly, to reveal one "with no rank insignia".

"Best you eff off home, then, the task was cancelled this morning! I thought you were someone else..... where did you park, I never heard a helicopter".

"About thirty yards away!"

We realised then that a 7 tonne helicopter can land silently (as long as the sentry is asleep).