Nimrod War Stories
 

Since all of the MR2 and MRA4 threads are so depressing, I would like to invite kipper fleet young and old to entertain us for with their, hopefully endless, fund of amusing stories, and perhaps answer some of the age-old questions - such as:

How did the cat really die in Gibraltar?

Who put the donkey in the pool at the Baia Verde?

Did the co-pilot whose Renault was crushed by a tank outside CXX know it was going to happen?

Who repainted 120 Sqn's roof to read CXXTS?


I hope it will be more amusing than reading about the scapping of each individual frame over the next few weeks...


CS:)

All except the last incident were by the same rouges. Best not to name names as they are in responsible positions now.

So one of them will be JJ then.

No all happened before he arrived as a young co-pilot

I'd be interested in hearing the definitive 'Fablon Map' descent story. Fair isle wasn't it?

In the 80s a certain USN exchange pilot joined the mile high club whilst on a night training sortie in D 001.

He'd brought his latest crush along for a famil sortie. After 2 hours Stage 2 we climbed to 6,000 ft for a 20 minute coffee break before commencing radar homings. The rear galley door was firmly shut.

Then there was Bas Heath in the 70s and 80s, bounced Mess Bills at every station he 'visited'. Bas existed only as a velcroed name badge but that was enough to create a 'legend' in his own time.

Two pilots on 206. Don't have the authority to out them.

Time for a few Samantha stories.... come in F84

(for those that never experienced the RAF before political correctness, all the Samantha stories are true and the photo's exist to prove it)

Personally I've always wanted to know about the Christmas party GW1. The one where the christmas tree was decorated with nurses "webbing".

Personal favourite...the flight sergeant lead dry who tried to arrest the huge brute pongo in the Montaric in Gib. Ouch.

And on the same theme, the AEO who took on the Foreign Legion chap in Nimes (ouch squared).

Crushed Renault
 

The said co pilot, (now a skipper with CX) I believe had no idea what was going to happen to his car. He was having trouble selling it, so we thought a bit of help was needed to help him get rid of it. I remember the Scimitar? had trouble going over the car so we enlisted the help of some siggies from the crew to act as "chocks" while the tank ran over it . We got a b********g from the staish as we ended up setting fire to it, which tied up a couple of fire appliances which did not go down too well! Shortly afterwards the Capt of the crew and myself were in front of the Boss to be told we were no longer allowed to fly together as his, the Boss's, career wouldn't stand it!
Happy Days;)

What about when a not very popular Sqn boss dropped his kit bag off at the bottom of the steps and told a passing irk to make sure it got aboard. The said irk suffered from mild memory loss. On arrival, I think it was a RP, said boss went ballistic after figuring out kit bag still at ISK. Now that is what you call leadership.

The AEO in Nimes didn't start the foreign legion incident, all I did was chat to an Egyptian legionnaire about football, Rangers and Marseille European cup 93, and it all kicked off, 4 of us got a bit of a beating and never felt any pain, but couldn't stop laughing about it. The legionnaire that started it was in full uniform and I never managed to pick up my baguette that littered the pavement after I was punched. Happy days

In fact, one of the CXX roof painters was a red-headed Nav and former dentist. Bob Joseph, who was then OC206 helped deflect some of the ire by pointing out that. as 120 had recently won an award for tactical excellence, the new roof was an homage to CXX Tactical Sword, and not in any way an insult.

So is the Nimrod going to actually figure in any way in any of these stories, or are they just wizard wheezes from the past that could apply to any fleet but just happen to be from Nimrod dudes?



Are any of them going to be less than 20 (30 in PNs case) years old - ok, I'll give you that 1993ish (the European cup story) was only 18 years ago...

There must be many versions of the story where you dropped from the skies with throttles back, everything hanging out, as quiet as a (noisy) mouse, then clean up and see if there isn't really an afterburner setting half an inch past the throttle stops....

CXX/6 did it over a parade in Greece, after 30 mins or so doing a '12 O'Clock High' impression dodging Greek fighters that were allegedly attempting some sort of formation flypast of said parade.

From the port beam it looked like we'd have caused less carnage had we dropped 500 lb bombs.

Jax - Dirty Harry's nightclub. A railed sort of verandah.... lean on it for more than 5 seconds and the result would be a 'my ankles have been gripped' sensation, a touch of acrobatics, and if you were lucky you didn't land on a glass on the table you'd just become an overly large drinks mat on. One night about 8 of our crew went through that in rapid succession - I always blamed the AEO. (Who decorated the outside of the minivan haflway from Daytona to Disney at about 40 mph).

Lingerie show in the Holiday Inn (a regular event), young ladies quite pleased by Nav Captain crying 'soooooot' as they went past, imagining it to be a cry of approbation... until he explained it was the final part of a cry that - in its complete version - went 'Tit sooooooot'. (Without the space. Admittedly an oddly Scottish sounding cry for a devout yorkshireman).

USN, Springtrain (I think) in the early 80's, USN asks Nimrod on surpic type task to on top the enemy group to aid targetting solution. Al B**e, yet another Nav Captain, eventually gets onto the radio in person to say 'this is the Royal Air Force, not the Japanese Kamikaze bloody airforce, I suggest if you want somebody to on top the enemy group you send for a P3'.

Pretty much on the same topic (ie "How, as a Flt lt Captain, you might address those of star rank") off Ascension as the fleet came by, explaining to the Admiral how he should land his helos, point out to sea, and **** off in fine pitch and leave the Nimrod to settle his 'possible sub sighting' issue. Well, he put it a bit more politely, but not much. (According to the callsign it WAS the Admiral he was talking to).

Baia Verde - there was another hotel up a sort of side road up the hill, can't recall the name, but they had a heck of a cable feed in the early hours of the morning that I discovered quite by chance....Also interesting characters in the bar who came in with two minders and had camel hair coats draped over their shoulders. It was like being an extra in the Godfather some nights when you stopped off at the bar<g>

Didn't do Piper Alpha, but we did fly on Alexander Kielland - an accomodation rig that capsized when a leg broke off. I would dearly love to have the power to wind time back and stop it happening, but as the 2nd crew on we were busy as hell all night and, as far as I can tell, rarely put a foot wrong. There's a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that your crew all pulled together and did a sterling job. This gave a fairly rare sense of satisfaction, the 6 hr crew trainers didn't produce anything like the same (apologies to all my AEOs who thought they'd come up with devilish scenarios to explain another 4 hrs of ACT), but just now and again you flew an important mission and knew you'd done a good job, and it felt fantastic. Got the same buzz from Airde Whyte and Fincastle sorties, and my personal favourite - JMC anti surface tasks. Common factor here, I guess, is you were in RADAR and going like a one armed paper hanger! (ON ASV and Searchwater - both kits had these moments).

I think the average IQ of a Nimrod crew was probably pretty high, and it took quite a lot to get the blood pumping - you had to know you were doing something worthwhile, and doing it well... but when that combo came up it made up for doing SAR on Christmas day, cold-cold 'wet' sorties, and at least some of the other nausea encountered.

It helped that the average Maritime career lasted about 60 years, I guess, dunno what others felt but I liked the wide age range and experience you got on the kipper fleet....

Favourite places - Marina in Gib, Bunch of Grapes at Pissouri, Chiefs' mess in Kef. (Although I imagine the Brass Nut might be more popular with the voting public).

Dave

I can't remember. It wasn't me. I wasn't there. I wasn't with the USMC ROCK of ICELAND that finished up outside the sqn.

We've all heard the stories of arriving at the hotel as the Swedish netball team just checked out but we (201/7) checked into the Catania Sheraton for 2 weeks of Exercise Dogfish just as the ladies world championships for water polo hit town. There was a general scrum around reception to get rooms over looking the pool (no that's where they relaxed not the actual championships) with us, the Australian girls (bless) the Canadians (mostly batting for the other side but fit) and some other bunch that time and poor memory have erased.

Anyway we really hit it off with the Aussie girls and our end or tournament/end of det party was something else.

Number 13 in the Aussie team was a girl to behold (God knows what her name was) but she was so well stacked yet so slim that the only places that the front of her swimsuit actually contacted skin was her chest and her front bottom (if you know what I mean).

I think Swervy feel in love about 3 times a day.

...nervous moments spent waiting for the totty to turn up with your bathroom FULL of beer - "S**t! What are we going to do with all this?"

Cue Ozzy birds "F**k me girls! Lets get drinking!" Happy days.

Oh, and the Carabinieri on the roof trying to get the party off the restaurant roof... and that was a det we MEANT to stay for 2 weeks...

Biggus
 

See my #6. The Nimrod was the platform for that fine act. There was more fore & aft movement than within a MADCOMP!

Dave remember the Greece flypast well......wasnt it the Stbd beam that asked should the airbrakes still be out.....quick select in 4 Speys on full chat with nose in the air demolished the parade. Later on at the reception after plenty of drinkies get on bus followed by the mil police asking us to hand all the gizits back.....Alexander K remember it too, I think everyone was controlling something that day including me. Gib on the way to ASI, used the end of the runway drop to get airbourne having told all and sundry not to camp there after a heavy session in the bar the night before. ASI and the admiral what a good call.
CXX/6 well we could write a book about it all re one day one of us will.ally

That'll be the Presidents Park.
The twisty road up to the hill was washed away by rain water flooding and revealed some of the mafia's 'former customers'. We wondered what all the blue lights were about when driving back from a sortie until we saw the local news and the line of hearse's collecting the 'customers' :ooh: