Met Techs Course at Shinfield Park c. 1980 [an ex-RAF HQ near Reading]

Mercury Barometer Servicing lesson.

Teacher: "Bloggs, what the bloody hell are you scrabbling around on the floor for?"

Bloggs "all the little ball-bearings have fallen out and are all over the place!"

NB. In these H&S awareness days,
1. mercury baro. not used and
2. if they were, incredible precautions would be taken.

Difficult to legislate against an outbreak of Bloggs, though.

If I may nominate a dark blue met man it would be Jimmy James at RNAS Culdrose back in the 70's. Always interesting and often hilarious met briefs which led to Helzepheron lunches.

Aaaaaah, Shinditz.

The European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) was next door. It was known as Early Closing Monday Wednesday Friday.

Joe 'Purple', the Met man at RAAF East (home of CFS, SAN and SATC)….in the early '80s. The surname merely reflected the colour of his jackets and ties - and he had quite the collection.

Joe 'Purple' was still at East Sale in 1986. Another classic was Lance C at 1FTS. Lance used have his 'jokes within lecture' embedded in his notes - guaranteed to occur at exactly the same point for each course.

As ever it's the French who set the standard.


Video: French weathergirl stuns viewers with nude report - Telegraph

Now recovering slowly from Met. reunion at Queen's Head Sleaford, 12 attended. Best dining pub in Lincolnshire. One broken ankle. Three unpublishable poems. One presentation champagne, one ditto whisky.
Thanks to David Taylor for organising, and the weather Gods for a sunny day.
Quote of the day: "he was a ****, but I can't remember his name!"

OK with that in mind I'll make a forecast for 12 persons for 3rd Dec with a 99 per cent chance of being right.

Windy and rough, vis poor, foggy becoming better.

Tiny was the RAF MetO during the last 543 Sqn detachment to Lima in 1974 monitoring the French nuclear tests in the Pacific. His high-level (FL490-ish) forecasts 2000nm away from land were usually accurate to within 5kts and 10 degrees. He was a consummate professional, and a delightful man to be with.

Would this be Tiny Mentz?

He became OC Mobile Met Unit as I recall.

Not at all Tiny!

Have sent you a PM

Well done Fly3!

I was wondering how long it would take for Jimmy James to get a mention.
One looked forward to his briefings and as I recall he was a leading light of Rent-A-Mob, but that's another story:O

ps Fond memories of the old Fly3 on Ark!!!!!

Well for me it has to be the two Hollies and the lovely Viv at Cranwell....

Always cheered my gloomy day up regardless of the weather!!

Small Welsh met man at Cranwell in late 60s-early 70s. Excellent chap, very dry humour, but sadly cannot remember his name. Whilst teaching Ground School and explaining Buys Ballot's Law, said "I always remember this by the simple way - If you stand in Piccadilly Circus with your back towards the statue of Eros, looking up Regent Street, then Austin Reed is on your left". Ever since then I've had no trouble remembering either the law or the direction.

I'd like to say a big "THANK YOU" to Trevor "The Wevver" Calvert at Brize in the '80s - the best met man I ever met. I remember battling in to Ops one snowy morning for an early departure (Deci or Dulles or some such) to find Trevor practically skipping around the office with delight. When we said "what have you got to be happy about, you lot didn't forecast this?" he proudly exclaimed "I did and I'm the only person in the country who got it right. I told Bracknell they were wrong and they told me to sod off". He was right more often than not and he was a decent chap to join for a pint in the mess bar .

As for accuracy, I once heard John Kettley say that the most accurate way to forecast is to say "tomorrow will be the same as today - you're more likely to be right than trying to do it properly".

Trevor was called TC or TopCat when he taught at the Met Office College, renowned for giving some Saudi students [my father is a prince. I am having problems revising. Would you like a Mercedes?] a hard time.

In my turn, I left a bunch of them in London because they were late reporting to the 2300 depart coach back to the billet near Reading.

Complaints via Embassy to Met Office, to College Principal and .............

.......... LB on carpet, standing, no coffee. Asked to explain.

"I was instructed to impart the British Met Office ethos inter alia. One essential is timeliness"

Case dismissed.

Good to see Bill McQueen mentioned. Excellent service to the C130 airbridge at Port Stanley. His forecast of a Z shaped jet stream gave us a 9hr 40mins record for a Herc PSA to ASI, 2/3 Sep82. Average time around 11 hours.
1066

No idea of their names, but the met men at Palermo were real comedians. For a start they were at a disadvantage being in the only office in the ATC tower with no windows and they would swear blind that there was no rain today, even though you were standing in front of the dripping wet. Their enthusiasm for the notion that all things in Sicily were good filtered through to the approach controllers. One of our rules was that we had to have radar monitoring. But Palermo ATC frequently had other ideas and would reply to a request for radar vectoring with, "Itsa nisa day. Radar, ees switched off".

Re #86 - France's answer to the burkini furore!

I met Peter Jackson last year at a Bawtry Met. reunion: we were together for years at Finningley. I think he drove a sports car "with room in the back for a lawnmower". Name escapes me but I believe it had a fibreglass body. He was one a very few forecasters who attended the RN Lieutenants' Course at Greenwich. I remember because his absence caused me a fair number of extra duties.

The McQueen folklore includes being sent back Home from Ascension [as a S/Ldr RAFR Met] when the Falklands were kicking off by the notorious Captain McQueen RN "we don't need you lot".

But they certainly did.