Crikey this is the last place I ever expected to turn up in !! What a nice thing to say. Shawbury was the best place I ever worked at and I miss it still. It's Gráinne btw...but I'll let you off :-)

Didn't this chap get remustered as a Met Man following a little whoopsie with a HS146 :suspect:

http://cdn.theguardian.tv/brightcove...er_6163198.jpg

A certain Mr. Gale was a Met Officer during one of my postings to RAF Odiham (can't recall exactly which one as I was posted there five times in all). His forecasts always used to be signed "I. C. Gale".

At first I thought it was a spoof, but apparently his forenames were Ian Charles. A more appropriate name for a met officer I couldn't imagine :ok: .

When I was an AATC in the tower at Odiham we had to ring Farnborough to pass on the met reports.
One of the guys had the habit of letting you think you had interrupted him reading, every time, every hour!
"His hand moved knowingly up her.....oh, hello Odiham" etc
Most engaging!

The only initials I can remember from those days were "Delta Whiskey".
But this was not the guy mentioned above.

lsh
:E

Going through flying training at Linton in 1971, I recall one met type who, for his sins, had been given the task of instructing the sprog pilots in the Mysteries of Meteorology. He was a fount of anecdote about the Atlantic weather ships, and would preface each anecdote by exclaiming "Swing the lamp!!" and suiting action to his words...

RAF Upwood...
 

...was a great course run by an absolute bloody genius of a schoolie. All the female studes swooned when he came in to the room and the chaps swooned when we went round to his quarter for supper and met his French wife. As a pair they were almost too perfect. Where are they now one wonders.
Later, much later, when I did the NATO comms course at Latina south of Rome the course was run by a German army major who had done the GIT at Upwood. He spoke beautiful English but "hammed it up" for the benefit of we studes.
"I am learning at the very wonderful RAF GIT course that in order to get the attention of the class it is a good idea to start the day with a joke; therefore we a joke will haf. And the smoke break will be for 5 minutes, or, to be more precise, 300 German seconds".

Back to metmen/women. Sorry.

The Ancient Mariner

UPWOOD GIT: first session.

1. instructor talks at students.
2. instructor writes on board
3. instructor writes on OHP
4. instructor projects B&W still photo at same time
5. ditto simultaneous colour still at same time, another screen
6. projects silent B&W film at same time
7. ditto colour[screens everywhere, all active]
8. ditto colour with sound.

Short break, follwed by CCTV film of class, showing us being brain washed into concentrating [unanimously, except the berk asleep or unconscious] on 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 in strict sequence.

Subject matter apparently irrelevant.

I learned a lot about teaching [never "lecturing!"] from that.

Best course ever.

This is the most entertaining thread I've read in a long while; hopefully my contribution won't diminish it.

Happy Four at Gioia del Colle, summer 1998. The Boss pitches up at Line Control for the next wave only to find the jets aren't fuelled. He is slightly miffed but understands that thunder and lightning go together and he can hear thunder too. He phones the Metman (exploding bosses are fun to watch when you're blameless) and after being assured that the nearest lightning is 60 miles away yells "You've got a f:mad:g window, open it".

R

The slightly built, bearded Metman at ASI circa '96 who took every opportunity to showcase his pins in the bar during the 'Male or Female Guess the Limb' game (never to be played sober or in above marginal light - actually, just never to be played at all).

Hopeless the Weathergirl at Lyneham (about '98) - always a delight especially at early morning multi-crew briefings before Her Maj's Armed Parachute Display and Orienteering Team went off on one of their spirited romps to finally capture Salisbury Plain.

The Met Instructors at Finningley in the mid 80s - how they managed to get through a day teaching the studes without resorting to extended use of fully automatic weapons will always be a mystery.

Each and every one a credit to the seaweed dangling profession - bless 'em all!

I can't remember if I have told the story of how my male member, such as it is, was nearly an RAFP Alsatian's midnight snack?

Nicosia Airfield c. 1962. The days of cloud searchlights for measuring cloud base by Pythagoras. The stratus rolled in and I rolled out to the alidade .... a medieval angle of dangle to use with the known baseline. The alidade was in the middle of the roundabout near Ops/Met/ATC, surrounded by bushes.

The stratus was patchy and I had to wait for a chunk to cross the vertical searchlight beam ......... and I needed a slash. Dark, bushes, slash, flies ........ ah! here's the cloud.

So there I was, mid-stream, squinting at the alidade, when I felt hot breath down below.

ID left in the office of course.

Half an hour later the snowdrop and his dog left the office, one full of Turkish coffee, still laughing, and one full of milk and biscuits [but NO MALE MEMBER].

And I went back outside to read and remember the angle this time ........ and the stratus had gone.

Morning Briefing Wattisham 1974.
S Met O very proudly announces to assembled Lightning pilots and execs that in the previous 12 months his personnel had got the forecast correct 49% of the time.
Failed to appreciate the laughter from the floor when someone pointed out that if they had taken the opposite view they would have been correct more often.:O

(Probably the same briefing when the ATCO stated that the station ident beacon was flashing steady red,)

There is another gathering of Metpersons soon. We hope to include the late dear George/Alan* Phillips's wife and also Tweedie's. Of last years gathering Ian Smith has handed his fircones and seaweed in for the last time ........ we will miss his anecdotes and funny voices. I once turned up for a Do in a navy blue chino suit "going for the crumpled look, are we?"

[George/Alan* P did a very long stint at JHQ, and was a long-time member of the Mobile Met Unit. The story of his two Christian names is a long one which I may tell some day].

MacCloud at Cranwell (1964 ish) forecasting a gin clear day as through the window behind him we watched fog roll across the airfield

2 Air Navigation School Gaydon 1969 - Charles Ripley who was known as Cu Nim Jim (just rhymed well). His favourite topic was unusual cloud formations, usually found in equatorial regions. As the Varsity had limited range, we we unlikely to encounter them. However, it pleased him that we stayed awake during his lessons.

242 OCU Thorney Is 1970 - Can't remember the name but his Met lesson always after lunch so difficult to stay awake. One question in the final met exam - 'Briefly describe the weather in Sydney in March'. Never made it to Sydney in 33 years of trucking.

6 Flying Training School - Finningley - Mr Gallagher (IIRC) was teaching the students and briefing the day's (or night's) flying. A rugged face to go with the Scottish accent. One day, a stream of 5 Varsity launched (shouldn't have) and all diverted to Leeming due to fog at FY. Frantic phone calls to FY and re-hashed the prog for the next day. Mounted another stream so as not to lose a trg day. Moi, as the instructor in the first ac had to give the Met brief! At least we all got back to FY.

Bill McQueen and the MMU staff on Ascension during Op Corporate - Recycled the Met Reporting Form I had assiduously compiled during the 26-hr flights South, for the crew departing 48 hours later. Something is better than nothing. Met up with Wg Cdr McQueen at Dining-In nights at Brize in the mid 90s

Richard Angwin was at Lyneham before seeking fame on BBC Points West. The crew faced the big windows in the Met office while the forecaster briefed. 'Dry and calm for departure', he said while we saw a thunderstorm open up behind him. He was a bit embarrassed. Ho hum! I believe he is with Al Jezeera now.

Scouse met man walks into morning brief at Colt in the early nineties. Places slide covered in fluffy stuff on ohp, says "the weather's ****e" and sits down again. Stunned silence from the Execs and giggles from assorted pilots.

McQueen and his boys [and a few girls] collected an impressive array of gongs, being sent into just about every operation/ war/ campaign of recent times.

I had lunch with one such, Tony "Geordie" A. a week ago. He has 10 gongs including Air Efficiency etc. and "I just missed the Falklands"!
I imagine few RAF people have as many, perhaps [from memory] Tac Comms Wing as was? One needed to be in a smallish and seemingly indispensible role to be omnipresent.

dagama
Not sure whether Mr Cruickshank was still around in 1970, but I remember doing the Beverley OCU groundschool in 64 when he taught Climatology. Remember that the Bev had no 'systems' as such to teach the Navs but the OCU still had to take one week under 6 months because that was the length of an OCU. Therefore we Navs filled our time with hours and hours of Climatology resulting in exam questions such as ' What is a typical landing forecast for Alice Springs at 1600 local in November'. Not many Beverleys in Alice Springs. When we got the Herc the climatology was much reduced as the Navs had more important things to learn about eg Nav Aids!

I do remember Mr Ripley, he was thinking about retiring as I was early in career, and yes, he was indeed into cloud formations and causes.

Anyone remember Chunky Chandler, Wilf Saunders or Norman Grandy at Manby?

The latter could not abide the office radio ["for listening to the shipping forecasts"] being tuned to music, and always turned it off as he entered.
So a bright spark doctored the radio so that the "off" switch/button/gizmo failed to work. Legend has it that it was capable of battery power, so when he turned it off at the mains socket, the band played on.
A temper tantrum ensued.

Best I can remember
 

Tall, slim, beautiful, brunette, at Leu. I helped her climb into the mess one night through the ante room window when I delivered her back after dinner at my place. I think we had rabbit pie but it was so long ago I can't really remember.

Rgds SOS

At Gan in 1958 we had no Met men or Women, just an Met Assistant who took the daily observations and measured the upper winds with a balloon and theodolite as seen here. The results were sent to the weather centre at RAF Katunayake (Sri Lanka) who issued the relevant forecasts.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r.../MetBaloon.jpg

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...n-Tracking.jpg

One of the Met Assistants was a bit of a wag and created a basic and early version of the "Weather Stone" forecasts for airman - which was on paper and pinned up in Gan's primitive 1958 ATC.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...pse978b0e6.jpg

I don't have a photo of the Gan version, but you can buy your own "Weather Stone" forecaster similar the the one above from the South American River place.