Typical total over reaction by all parties involved..... Yes being unfit to fly through drink is not clever, and very bad form, but it will be delt with by the unit & it should have stayed in the unit. Anyone who can put thier hand on thier heart and say they have NEVER been shabby "the morning after" is either a liar or in denial.

Agree 100%.

Not on ops, but remember an occasion on tankers when a newish captain appeared for pre-flight planning obviously still under the influence from the previous night's heavy session. His older rear crew all suggested that he might have a heavy cold and be unfit to fly, but he refused to take the hint. They then all unanimously declared themselves medically unfit to fly, and when this unheard of state of affairs came to the notice of the boss, said captain received what he later decribed as the bollocking of his life. It was all kept in house, the guy learned a valuable lesson and later became a highly respected tanker captain.

I suppose these days with everyone watching their own backs this wouldn't happen, but I know which approach I prefer.

If the guys were on ops at any time the following day that really wasn't smart. I don't know of any commander in the Air Force who hasn't played a joker on occasion. Squadron cameraderie is important and I hope that aspect of Air Force life is never squeezed out. I, for one, wouldn't throw stones in my glass house.

There's something not quite kosher about this whole thing. Too late now I suppose to test their blood for anything additional to alcohol? I spent time in the RAF when getting legless wouldn't raise an eyebrow but I never ever saw anyone reach the stage of 'lying in a gutter'. Let me think, Bugis Street, Cyprus, Malta, Oakham, Bahrain, Gan etc etc. Nope; never.

Typhoon pilots the night before shooting ops? Very strange.

TOCU - early 1980's - not unknown for Tornado crews to shove some Brufen tablets down their necks and "walk" to the jet ten minutes earlier than required, in order to go on 100% oxygen before start-up to counter the effects of a large bar bill. They were not on ops, of course.

The greatest crime is disobeying the eleventh commandment. Do they not teach that at Sleaford Tech?

Geehovah:
I agree that this is the pivotal point and is the real reason the guys have taken a fair and justifiable amount of heat. Being an auth or the SOF carries quite a lot of responsibility even if you are not the chap actually flying the jet the very next day.

Read the article, which when you dig into it, is much ado about nothing - Hours before an operation? How many hours.

Sounds to me like they've been dealt with as a PR exercise for the locals more than anything else, as we dont know (but probably have a rough idea) what shennanagins have been going on from deployment day +1.

The super soaraway scum (our lads favourite) jumps in with hystrionics.

Sshh all you guys, or Red Line Entry will hear ---

I assume that this situation wasn't kept in-house because it could not be kept in house; otherwise, pretty poor drills to let these two guys hang and everyone else to suffer afterwards. They presumably started the evening with some other officers - if it was getting out of hand the Sqn 2IC should have had a word in their shells like and if it was getting really out of hand they should have been bundled into a cab (with an escort) and told to see the OC Sqn in the morning when they had sobered up. Short of rape or murder, if a situation can be dealt with within the chain of command, then it should be. The bottom line is this - were they good guys who ****** up or were they social hand grenades? If the former, then the quality of mercy is not strained, if the latter then I guess it's AGAI 67 time.

The Army is not blameless in this regard, far from it. A Inf Bn CO (who I knew many years ago as a Lt MG Pl Comd) and his Bn 2IC got similarly trashed on ex in Eastern Europe a couple of years ago, much to the embarrassment of the DA. Luckily, it didn't make the Sun, although there were plenty of witnesses i.e. an entire Inf Bn. Both officers were sacked.

err... umh... err

Just this once - Doh:=

Understandable sticking up for the boys here, but tbh for those of us who know the full story this one really isn't good.

You ARE joking aren't you?

If a bloke is trusted enough to strap the biggest boys toy in the world to his aerse and fly millions of pounds worth of kit around the sky and drop big bangs on people, I expect him to be able to wipe his own backside and keep it out of trouble. Anything else deserves a massive and long-lasting slap.

According to the widely respected Sun -

The Air Component Commander (ACC) in charge of operations was so furious he immediately slapped a two-week booze ban on the 700 RAF personnel — air and ground crew — at the airbase.
The dry zone was extended to all colleagues serving on Operation Ellemy, including those at an airstrip in Bari 100 miles away and at the RAF's Cyrpus HQ Akrotiri, where Nimrod and Sentinel spy planes are operating from.

Typical bit of heavyhanded, not thought through, over reaction. Deal with the guilty and let the innocent get on with their work and a bit of light drinking.

Scopie

If thats a wah, its brilliant!:ok:

There is a total disconnect between the original thread on pprune and what has emerged in that paper. There have been some correcting rumours appearing here too but far be it from me to point to them.

However with modern communications things are clearly different from yesteryear and almost the same year as the Currant Bun was first published:

A large crowd was forming in a main street in Penang and getting bigger by the minute as our now venerable piper was entertaining one and all to a virtuoso performance. Immediately around the piper were a group of inconspicuous persons, long sleeved white shirts, properly tied ties etc, and on the periphery the growing crowd of Malays and other locals.

Into the group came a bunch of RAAF and RAF Police to break up the mob, possibly knock a few heads and restore order.

"Hello, hello, hello" or words to that effect, "Who's are you lot?"

"Wg Cdr Tanner, and who are you?"

"Er . . . , sorry Sir, but can you move on a bit, you're blocking the road."

They had about as much chance of doing anything as stopping an ice cream melting.

Oh, and we were on Ops with our trusty steeds the other side of a Strait and ferrys that stopped running at midnight.

Of course an individual entrusted to fly any of HM's aircraft needs to be able to check his (or her) own six, but we fly in formation to look out for each other...not just because its fun. Same should apply on a night out.
So come on handleturning, tell us why we're mistaken to defend the guys.

Yes Handleturning, really curious now! 'Isn't good' for whom, the guys or the Service, or both?