Andoya
 

I always found the natives very friendly-especially when the fishing fleet was out:ok:

....you could say the same about Buckie, but I wouldn't want to go there on a det!!!

LOL, had a similar fate befall one of my/our lads, to cut an excellent story short he ended up on a night ferry to Newcastle as the noggie 'wimmen were on an M&S run and he ended up "tagging" along......

....AND he was back on shift on time on Monday morning.

But he was there BEFORE us LOL.

Great days when you were allowed a bit of slack now and then.:D:D:D

Keflavik
 

In January 1973 with the whole Nimrod crew living in a Quonset hut on the far side of the Little League football pitch.

The temp. was minus a lot & the wind was blowing at 50 kts. After one of our overnight Oedipus sorties it took 3 hours to taxi in as we were sliding all over the place on the taxiways. We were operating that museum piece, the Nimrod, RIP!

PS Kef at any time wasn't exactly a holiday camp. Discuss.

Hi Fin,

In those conditions the 4 turboprops on my Orion made life a lot easier, 'cos you could select reverse pitch. Mind you, not too much call for it operating from Edinburgh (South Australia.)

Hi NR,

I guess that's why the USN operate P3s!

Thumrait
 

what a toilet this place is, its akin to living on the moon in more ways than one, no atmosphere, miles from anywhere and populated by people who look at you like you have got 2 heads:hmm:

Cazatou
 

Sorry,46 Andovers not on that detachment; Hercs only.My log book shows Nov 8th 1971 operated Lyneham to Pisa. The 9th was the low-level with the prang,no flying for a few days. Started again on the 13th,back to Blighty on the 19th.
Wx on the 13th was OK and not a factor in the accident as far as we could tell. Regards Brian Wildey.
PS do you live in Dept 46,Lot?

Engine change Gander VC10 outside winter.......... Refused cold weather kit by Brize Stores, so in minus 15 plus do engine change in normal UK dress.... Tw+ts...... Attempt to open engine bag that has sat outside all night in even lower temps and cold soaked, consistancy of bag is that of peanut brittle and simply falls apart in ones hands...... week later get call from engine bay Warrant Officer to tell me I am Tech Charged for destroying the £15,000 by now flexible bag that is sitting in his bay..... Flip my lid and tell him to go ahead, reels off the list of all the other t+ssers he can add, such as clothing stores then hang up on him............ never heard a another thing about it.

Pretty much any of my Basrah dets.

Awful, God forsaken dump with no redeeming features, with a Div HQ full of arrogant but ignorant army types (note, not all are like that, just the ones we seemed to get there), who thought that shouting a bit louder was the answer to everything.

And a SWO who had so little to do that he would mince up and down the main drag pulling people up for the colour of their T-shirts. Pre-det paperwork from BAS J1 provided direction on dress regs, but the SWO decided on his own interpretation and that white t-shirts were not allowed despite the written dress regs stating differently. Told him if he was so concerned he could go to stores himself, get me 7 brown T-shirts and bring them to my office by COP that day or I would continue to wear what I had and get on with ops. Never heard any more.

Add to numerous jobsworths and idiots the heat, crap accommodation, lack of air con for weeks on end some times and locals who were so pleased to see us they kept trying to kill us at every available opportunity. Not my happiest times in the military.

Contrast that with Bastion in 06 - admin and bull**** went out of the window and we got on with the job we had been sent to do. A det that turned boys to men and put hairs on your chest, but how an op tour should be.

Kangaroo 2 - Roeburn, Western Australia C1984...

Followed by Kangaroo 95 - Tindal 1995......

A TOTAL waste of time...

Anywhere that involved getting there by Shackleton.

What got me early on was sitting in crappy hotel bars, bored titless, listening to the old farts banging on "Do you remember the det to blah, where we all got mullered and blah blah blah." You assume you're just unlucky as all your dets so far are beyond boring as no one wants to do anything that involves leaving the aforementioned crappy bar.

A year later: another det, another craphole joint, now the same blokes banging on about the above det like it was the best one ever. God save me.

What about your 'dets' now Dunhovrin? The rear crew may just be a bit better looking, but the bars are the same? :ok:

Every time we went on that bl**dy aircraft career, RO5. Culminating in 4 months living underneath that ramp weird navy rules and taking a month to find out that the deck plates lifted up to stow your bags and finding the out of date beer the stokers had left for us as a joke (it still got drunk)
Watching fisheads mouth along to the words of cruel sea "another cup of cocca" Argh.. no wonder someone was stealing the bolts out of the main radar mounting 4 months of very cramped conditions were you couldn't turn over in your bunk because your shoulders would hit the bunk above...
Desert even Basra wasn't to bad and I can't think of any that I hated like that boat.

Night stop in Pago Pago (120Sqn) had all the potential to be totally sh!te until we stumbled across the yacht club, American Samoa Olympic Commitee (no really), and the Duke.

Embarked Lynx on Towed Array Patrol north of Arctic circle that goes tits up on day 2 of 35. Remainder of grey time wallowing at 4 Knots waving at Bears.