I'm told there'll be no more photos until the stories resume (thread shift and all that). So...

Who actually was there when Scotty's ceiling was lifted after he'd gone?

More to the point:

What actually was there when Scotty's ceiling was lifted after he'd gone?

Who was the tw@t who, on his first weekend, showed his ID to some birds in a pub just to prove he really was a pilot?

Second only to the guy who in 2 years never (at ground level) left the wire once. What a waste.

For me the high point of several Dets/Tours was finding a 3 year old toddler that had gone walkabout assumed drowned near Belleek. Little lad was found 1.5 miles (of thick forest) from where he and his dogs had left his mum sleeping in a car in a lochside car park. Within 30 mins of a succesfull outcome I watched a local flicking us the 'Vees' with no idea of what we had just done for the wider community and without any predujice.

Low point was deploying to Lockerbie within hours of the 747 crash. Especially as I had arrived in Province with 14 crates of wobblie and told I would not be flying until Boxing Day. Probably just as well that the morning after the night before was influenced by the night before :=

I think this sums up my work there quite well, much mundane routine work but when it got interesting it was to an extreme.

I had some good times on 72 Sqn in the late 70s but thought I had escaped to SAR after 2 SH tours only to be called back to fill in for the Navy who had to go down South to sort out a little Argie Bargie. It was as though I hadn't left though my yellow bone dome was a little too bright for OC72 so had to cadge a spare.

I was tasking down in South Armagh when we got a call to pick up a stick from a new grid. The young co-pilot plotted it and showed me on the 20thou map. I recognised the field and said it was just over the hill and short of 2 green grain silos.

On arriving back at Aldergrove I spotted my co-pilot intently studying the 20thou! I enquired what he was doing so he asked me how I knew the silos where green as he couldn't find the colour reference on the map index.

Local knowledge was a wonderful thing and I can still see a lot of the HLS now though I was surprised to see how so many have been removed!

Many happy memories - Firing captured IRA weapons on the range - Thomson sub machine gun was my favourite - touch of Al capone:E Crewman knocking out RUC constable who was trying to leave Walter at 2000ft as we crossed from Raithlin Island with a ballot box he had been guarding all day - in a pub;) Waiting in Buzzards hut for the very first weather fax to come through - took 15 mins to appear out of the machine! Wives out for the Summer Ball courtesy of 32 Sqn Andover - travelling to Antrim with said wife in covert minivan which was hand painted and still had all the usual MOD notices and fire extinguisher in the cab.:eek: She had never seen so many Union Jacks as it was the marching season. Newspaper Argosy losing one of its main undercarriage legs on the runway. Waiting in the bar to go outside for the 1st 747 to land at Aldergrove - it was so quiet we missed it!

Good to see that traditions and spirit were carried on once 72 Sqn became a permanent fixture in NI - though the detachments were probably more fun:ok:

HF
(waiting for snow showers to cease so I can go flying:))

Scenery
 

What actually was there when Scotty's ceiling was lifted after he'd gone?

Wasn't actually there, but I did go back with the Junglies..

Allegedly, stacks of porn, contact mags, HK 53 mags (minus ammo) a set of NVG and it looked like he'd just popped out for the weekend!

SHFNI dinner nights were legendary...:}:ok:

I was there 82 - 84 but don't remember Scotty's ceiling being lifted so presume he must have extended his tour - he was there when I arrived.

I remember that after my dining-out night, Scotty and A N Other went to visit the "guys on the other side of the airfield" and were stopped en route by an RAF Police patrol. Scotty showed his 1250 to the Police Dog and patted the corporal on the head. Total sense of humour failure by the plods, subsequent interviews/bollockings etc.

Does anybody know what happened to him - and why was his ceiling lifted anyway??

Hi PhamousPhotographer

Is that Camlough Mountain - if not it is very similar (29yr memory). We used to resupply an OP on the top and it was not a place I would like to spend a winter's night!

HF

Location
 

An ex army colleague told me how they had been warned about "spirited driving" on the peri tracks. One evening he spotted an RAF plod holding a speed camera. He sped up, drove straight past him to the guard house around the corner, called out the guard, saying someone in camouflage had just pointed a gun at him inside the airfield, by the fence. All hell broke loose and within a couple of minutes the plod was face down, in the the grass, with a few SA-80s pointing at him. :)

Tiger_Mate
Oddly enough I was on Resettlement leave/ course doing training in Pub Management at my local and on rate 1's at home for a month in a village near Carlisle :p when it happened :sad:

I was still in the mob and walking the couple of miles to "work", it was one of those barmy summer evenings, warm but totally silent, when across the fields I heard the wail of a ambulance siren, and then another, and another until the whole of Carlisles emergency services were heading north and I mean all..........
I just stood there in utter disbelief at the sound, something I will never forget, later watching the news in the pub I managed to dissuade several local idiots who were going to drive up to lockerbie to "have a look."

Walking home that evening the first Chinooks past overhead and having been on 240 OCU when we first got them, I was bloody impressed with the time taken to call them out and get them there :D

Several friends attended, one being in the local police and he was one of the first at the Cockpit. :( The thing that impressed him was the local fire service, he said he was having a break with the rest of police etc when they removed their firemans jackets and it was then they realised they were all part time volunteers and were still wearing what ever they had on when they arrived and had been dropped into the hell that was Lockerbie...:sad:

People at home could not and did not fathom that but for a few minutes flying time or the odd thousand feet it would have came down on us........

So Tiger_Mate I would just like to say a belated Thank You :D

Your memory is failing you (probably a good thing :( ) - Clipper 103 was brought down on 21 December 1988.

Close to the coast in my part of the world it does not tend to get that cold, the description was the best way I could describe the stillness of the evening (agree with forgetting, but somethings need remembering :( )

the myth of scottie............
 

AFIK - and I was there - scottie's ceiling was not raised, removed or anything else - the NVG's etc were in his wardrobe.....

NI Funnies
 

Late 60's or early 70's I was a Wessex crewman on a six week stint in Aldergrove. Flying over a field of pristine snow my pilot could not resist landing on and taxiing a series of straight lines until he had spelled out his name, MIKE, in great big letters. 'Piece of piss' says I, 'all straight lines!'
Accepting the challenge Mike then unlocked the tailwheel and taxied a respectable letter S. Clever sod!
We hadn't been long back in the crewroom before the Boss landed from a flight and a great bellow came down the corridor 'Mike Sutton, my office. Now!'
There were four pilots called Mike on the detachment, but only one Mike S, and the Boss had flown over that very field! Sorry Mike!

Slieve Gullian/Camlough?
 

Easy to confuse them!

I was once tasked with a patrol drop to a grid. The patrol comprised the CO, Ops Offr, 2ic and QM and, to be honest, they just wanted a few hours outside the Mill and an easy stroll. I plotted it on a 20 thou map and saw that it was on the top of a mountain. Ah, I thought, they want to be dropped off on Slieve Gullian, so that's where they went. Hours later, I wandered into the mill to find a bit of a rumpus going on. The patrol was overdue. How could that be, said the watchkeeper, they were dropped off on Camlough, so it was only a couple of miles downhill.

Without saying anything, I made myself scarce, dug out the map, unfolded it and, yep, the grid reference was actually on the top of Camlough. Oops.

Much later that evening, they arrived back, knackered. The CO was convinced I had done it deliberately, but it really was an honest mistake.

On the recievig end of something similar myself at Carrickmore, dropped off for a route clearance,Wessex dissapears into distance,quick look at map we had been dropped off five miles from Carrickmore on the wrong side of the village ,so five mile walk back to the village before we could start the clearance from the wrong end:= .Around 92-93 St Patricks Day ended up doing Eagle VCPs in a Wessex around Twinbrook/Poleglass all going well until the little sh1ts in poleglass started to brick the chopper when it set down off the Pembroke Loop.

The other end of that particular pendulum came with the advent of pocket sized GPS. Even on a particularly dark night, little in the way of ambient light to make NVG even vaguely effective in the inevitable NI heavy rain and if you dropped troops so much as a field short they would be on the RT with critical comments before you got 3 miles down the road.

72 vs 230
 

:}Moving Spoons' room in toto on the night of the 230 Sqn Inaugral Dining-in Night to the balcony over the Officers' Mess entrance whilst he dined (although 230 Sqn did get us back with a kidnapping later that night - can't remember who went for a ride down the stairs in a triwall box though?)

Painting a huge Swift in Red paint of the 230 Sqn Portakabin Roof after Happy Hour one night, the results are still visible on Google to this day. Froze our Boll*cks off, got covered in red paint and almost died doing a drunken traverse of the roof but it was worth it.

Getting blind (almost literally) following a session in the bar making Harvey Wallbangers with some pocheen following some work with the RUC. I had to self auth the next morning as the DA (Adders I think) was still comatose in his pit He didn't surface until 1600 and was very ill for about a week.

FLANGE and CLANG to counter the FOLA

OC 72 bollocking me for comments in FOLA NEWS when it clearly said "FOR FOLA EYES ONLY" on the front cover?
A2 Cat and Smeg for brains...............

A White World
 

Zic, I was there for the painting..I also remember 'DÖNITZ' D**man pretty much breaking his legs trying to paint it out!!!

The Potcheen party...woke up, banging head, couldn't see a thing, swore I was actually blind, heard muttering and door slamming..cleaner had picked my clothes up along the coridoor and had found me, door wide open starkers with my head under my duvet, kneeling beside the bed..lord knows how many people had walked to work past my room!!!

EESDL if you have a copy of FOLA News, we need it here....:}

Zic & Huey

Same era for sure. Probably TTB in the Triwall. If I recall he almost went over the balcony as well.

Can remember Seve's pinching my name badge and then subsequently getting an unexpected b******ing for going downtown Dungannon on the p*** with the RUC in my growbag!

Also a Comp A with EEDSL over a bank holiday weekend. Horrible night, low-level over the water then abort followed by Decca nav above 8/8ths, only 2 lanes working to limp into Lyneham as everywhere else Red. SVFR tac descent into Heathrow ahead of an increasingly large 747. Tourist route back and then into see the fearsome crewman leader with twitching tash who was Duty Flt Cdr for the weekend and had fielded a number of calls about the antics of a 'strange' Sea King. Happy days and one punter who got to see his mum just in time. Almost missed the field promotion for the very rude crewman who returned the favour by making best use of the snooker table

Spoof 'Forum' Poster
 

Anyone remember seeing multiple copies of this appearing around SHFNI Ops/72 Sqn/The Swift in late 98?:

HUMAN FACTORS OPEN REPORTS

forum

for unofficial use only


THURSDAY 31 DECEMBER 98

21A-98

PIES! PIES! PIES!

ü A Wessex navigator reports....

I had been tasked with a training sortie on my first day back at work after my Christmas day off. This immediately caused a distraction as I discovered to myhorror that such flights no longer attracted a packed lunch or meals allowance, a problem exacerbated by my distended stomach which had been stuffed full of turkey over the festive season. However, as a seasoned professional, I reasoned that, if we got cracking, we should have been back before elevenses. The planning for the trip went ahead, but at the last minute we discovered that the SAR Navigator had gone sick. Yippee! Now I could blag his buttie box and stave off the inevitable hunger pangs which would arise between breakfast and my first between-meals snack. Better still, whilst delving through the crewroom fridge, I found several Ginster’s Pasties, which would also come in handy. With that, I set off to brief, happy in the knowledge that my sustenance needs had been met. After start up, we taxied to the ‘H’, and the pilot took off to the low hover, commenting that the aircraft seemed sluggish. At this point, a nagging doubt surfaced in my subconscious, but a quick bite of Ginster’s finest soon allayed any such fears. We transitioned, and the crewman confirmed that he had checked the aircraft weight in the F700, and that we had a massive 200 lbs disposable. Imagine my horror then, when at the same instant, the pilot reported that he had just pulled 3800 lbs torque, and was landing on immediately. In a sudden rush, it occurred to me that I’d gone one pie too far! What had happened? Well with hindsight, I had clearly been distracted by the overwhelming urge to maintain my blood sugar level, at the expense of a valuable coupling gearbox!

ü A Wessex pilot reports....

Enough said!

Imagine my shock when it turned up in Air Clues 6 months later, and some other git had clearly trousered the £50 reward!:)

Thankfully that happened before I did a stint with them...anyway I was sooooo pisssssssed I doubt I would have noticed....:eek::}:=

Ref White world, I came down the next day as Lx 5 to see in the New Year with Mark D of 72...oh joy!

More 850
 

Mark D – as in ex-TWA who went to 18 after 72 disbanded? Here he is on the 16th March 2002, i/c of XR497’F’ with K** S****y and D*** B****n on what should have been the final Wx10 night line there, one I was authed to accompany. Circumstances dictated otherwise re Wx10’s termination.

Oops - sorry about that. Overenthusiasm. 700 x 500 in future.

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...amphotog-2.jpg

Yep, that one.:ok::ok:

MD
 

:ok:Top bloke. Out now I think.

Mid seventies. A call from Lisburn. There is a bottling plant that has enquired whether a helicopter can change over a storage tank. If it can be done the MOD will do it for free as a civic gesture. I will be picked up at Lisburn tomorrow at 10.00hrs.
Next morning I fix up a heli-lift to Lisburn and I take with me our crewman leader, a Flt Lt of Irish extraction. Into BASO’s office and there is an RUC police inspector who is going to take us there and discuss the security implications. Into his car and off to the bottling plant of a major international drinks company. We meet the manager, the police chap already knows him, and over coffee in his office discuss the reasons why they would like a helicopter. After the tank was installed they built a warehouse so that cranes could not get at it any more. We then trotted out to look at the site.
The initial impression was that the tank would just about fit on a 32 wheel trailer with rear end steering. I kept a straight face, walked around it and enquired as to its weight. About seven and a half tons, was the reply. Maintaining a straight face I walked around it again and regretfully informed then that it was slightly outside a Puma’s capabilities.
“Not to worry, we’ll pull the shed down. Let’s go in and have a drink before lunch.”
In his office he had a massive drinks cabinet stuffed with every concoction known to man. He also had the largest collection of novelty and pornographic matchbooks I had ever seen. It had only just turned eleven and lunch wasn’t until twelve thirty so by the time we launched off to the hotel we were already two sheets to the wind.
We didn’t slow down at lunch and we were just finishing off when the police inspector looked at his watch and announced that he had promised to get us back to Lisburn by three, that was twenty minutes. Without further ado we said our farewells and collapsed into the back of his car. He reached into the glove compartment, pulled out a big blue light with a long wire attached and with blinding stroboscopic flashes clamped it to the roof of his car. We then punched off down the M1 at about 110 but four bulging eyeballs looking over the seats in the back but we made it on time.
We enquired about a lift back and we got the news that they were diverting a Wessex to pick us up in ten minutes. Our knees buckled in relief. We were afraid he might have offered to take us to Aldergrove.

There was a time that a thriving business was based in one of those houses selling Irish Linen & Lace from a garage, but I suspect that I am showing my age.

Well of course Diablo Rouge, The Mill was in its heyday a linen mill. Remember one time I was snowed in there for a couple of days - in weather not unlike today's - and got bored enough to find in the Mess an old book on Bessbrook's History; the Mill and the village.

The Mill's (earlier) claim to fame was that it had produced the table linen for the Queen Mary in the (?) 1930s - good pub quiz question that!

From the same book, Bessbrook (the village) was built as a "model village" for the workers in Victorian times by the owners, a bit like Bournville or Port Sunlight. And as the owners (like the Cadburys) were apparently strict Quakers, Bessbrook (like Bournville) went for many many years without a pub!

'The Brook'
 

In a similar vein to Fareastdriver's tale, as a reward for my efforts at Lisburn, I was invited to a few libations at Knock on a day I was due to travel home on leave. The afternoon wore on rather, and it looked as if I would be unable to get to City Airport in time to make my flight.

I mentioned this to my hosts, which resulted in a blue-light run to the steps of a held flight, and a couple of bottles that we'd been unable to find time to open to accompany me on my onward journey to Manchester and beyond.

Result? I woke up as my train pulled into Middlesbrough, having slept through York.

Happy daze.

Edited to add; worked with MD when he was but a lowly Airtrooper - nice to see the boy done well.:ok:

What wonderful memories this brings back.

Gentleman Jim

More Scenery / Navex
 

Phamousphotograher.....
 

That last left hand seat shot is probably Castledillon - I spent hours and hours of flying around there delivering ReadyMade concrete to build the refuel LSs. It proved a bloody good refuel site for many years but in the 90's I went back there and found it disused!! What a waste! Incidently I was Crewman on the Wessex which took the very first troops in there at o-dark-o-clock in the very early 70's to take over the house........:E !

10/10
 

Yes; the main house became an old people's home and that closed in the 90's. It's all derelict today, with the roof collapsed on the stable block, but there are still indications of its military past with faint MT markings on the external walls of the building at the rear of the stables and a few signs remaining on internal doors.

an epocryphal tale from Castledillon......
 

In the mid 70's Dick L@angworthy (of BN Falklands War fame) was the 'beefer' on the Puma detachment and was looking after a new-to-the-territory new boy pilot before letting him loose solo at the innocent Irish public. I was the crewman and we were tasked together to fly a days' tasking in the Province. Anyway I decided that the 'New Boy' should have as much help as I could give him (cos Dick took no prisoners...)We got airborne from Aldergrove and Dick gave the nav to the New Boy. I helped as much as I could and was eventually told to 'Let the New Boy get on with it'. So off we went across the bloody border!! New boy is feeling fragile. We then landed the troops in a field with bloody great wires across it. On the approach to the field I said 'There are wires across the middle of the field' No reply from New Boy who is now doing the flying (as he can't nav!) and is probably maxed out. No reply from him. We landed on and ground taxiied and stopped slap dab underneath the wires! The troops departed and then New Boy' asks for clearance to lift. No says I there are wires directly above us, I suggest you ground taxi until the tail is clear of the wires. We then decided to go for some fuel at Castledillon. We rocked up there and there were rocket fences all over the place and it was all a bit adjacent. Anyway I talked him to the spot and I got out and supervised the refuel by the magnificent TSW heroes :D and at the finish I rolled up my long lead and boarded the a/c. Secured my monkey harness and said 'You are clear to lift, tail LEFT' What happened? He lifted and swung the tail RIGHT!! DOWN, DOWN, DOWN I shouted and we landed on again just before we would have hit the rocket fence with the tail! I rushed up the front. Dick in the LHS had already got a fag going and he looked round just as I swung a punch at the RHS New Boy and shouted 'Next time listen to what I am telling you!' Or words to that effect! When we got back to Aldergrove Dick bollocked me for striking an officer and the New Boy apologised for being a liabillity all day and promised he would improve - and he did! But he NEVER forgot that first trip tasking in NI.......

Now that 'Air Clues' is back in production, you could write an "I learnt about CRM" article with that one.

Charlie H**e's Mess Cannons were legendary....

R***ie B**ker's were too, must find the photo I have of Seafury Fan's arse in the bubble window whilst in formation....

Dougie H**se going 1st class in the cockpit...almost permanently

N***a going solo at Ballynorth