Who was 'the boss' on a Nimrod?
 

Who ran the ship? Was it the Tac Nav, the AEO, or perhaps the senior pilot? Or could it have been any of them?

The Boss was any one of those. The guy that ran the show was the Tac Nav.

The flight Engineer, period !
The grumpy gits always acted like they were having one.

Hat, coat, taxiiiii!

The one who brought the pies.

Ta Pontius. That was my understanding.

Bannock - yeah, I can see that. ;)

The FO - he had the impress!!!

Yeh but, Pontius Navigator would say the Nav was I/C, wouldn't he. In reality the ground crew were in charge. If they didn't pull out the power plugs and take away the chocks then the bird wouldn't go anywhere.

It would really depend on what we were doing, but in the main I think that on Ops sorties, the Lead wet or Lead dry were in charge!
It was a brave man who took either of them on, that is for sure!
Ahh, very happy days
Winco

Me

/thread

surely it would be the wife of the ......

Whoever was in charge of the DCS. :}

Quite so :)

The 'norm' had been for the Lead Wet to declare 'contact buoy 9' at which point the Tac Nav would leap in to action and start firing off sonobuoys left and right. The Route Nav would try and find buoy 9 on his spidergram and the Pilot would set course for buoy 9. The dry team would then reload the buoys that the Tac Nav had scattered. The AEO mean while . . .

However, after one Irishman's pay rise (The winco would say well deserved) the MACR got more pay than a lowly flt lt (non-spec aircrew). This changed the game.

The Lead Wet to declare 'contact buoy 9' at which point the Tac Nav would slip his headset off one ear, swivel round, and shout "what do you recommend Mr Cross?" After due consideration, comparison of last months pay check, Mr Cross might respond with 'mini barrier one MDR spacing down track". The Tac Nav would then finish his pie, set a steer to the first free marker and consider the advice. The Route Nav would try and find buoy 9 on his spidergram and the Pilot would watch the autopilot. The AEO mean while . . .

the AEO would meanwhile would be wondering how to spend his PAS wages, having had the best of both worlds: i.e being a knocker while young enough to make the most of donny and being a zob while needing the extra income to pay off the first wife.....;)

Reminds me many years ago on a trip where once on the bus half a dozen people were arguing who was boss before bus had even left.
Driver just got off and and lit a fag which he leisurely smoked sitting on a wall close by.
After he finished he got back on and reminded everyone, "I'm driving, I'm ultimate boss, any problems get the :mad:off".

Pontius Navigator

...most 'good' AEOs would simply sit back and do absolutely nothing!

An interfering AEO was trouble frankly, and the wise ones would sit on their hands and just let the Leads get on and run the show.

Not that I've goty anything against AEOs of course, every crew should have one, if only for entertainment value!

Standing by for some heavy flak

Winco

I think it was pretty well summed up during the conversation whenenver the captain needed to go off intercom:

"Tac Nav, Captain, are you on?"
"Afirm Captain"
"Roger, Captains off, Third Dry you've got it!":8

Winco

AEOs as entertainment? Exactly!

Some may be unaware that AEO stood for 'Air Entertainments Officer.' Our role was to provide light entertainment for the rest of the crew during long nav stages or transit flights. Some AEO's told jokes while others did readings. But I chose to sing over the intercom. Typically, I did selections from 'Fiddler on the Roof' and other tuneful shows. As you can imagine I got lots of requests from the rest of the crew. Alright, some of them were a bit hurtful, but you just had to stick with it.

So winco, no flak from me.

The beauty of two intercom systems.

Intercom ?!
 

We had Intercoms?!? No-one ever told me that:}

At South Cerney in 1965 I seem to remember a pilot flight commander saying, without a trace of irony, "When you get out into the wider Air Force you will meet AEOs - rough diamonds mostly, but many with hearts of gold."