Walking above the cloud layer on Ben Alder on a section day out and seeing two home based F3's buzz past. Couldn't have arranged it better.

Sitting in the jump seat of a B747 seeing a thunderstorm over Cyprus that was over 80 miles away and lighting up the clouds all around. The storm covered the complete island.

Newt shaking his fist at me over the northern end of Lahr's runway, when all I was doing was checking that he was alive after his rather pathetic attempt at a single-engine approach in a Jaguar!:E

And Bernie sitting serenely, smiling, and waving politely, in his dinghy in the warm seas off the coast of Belize after his engine failure in a Harrier a few years before. :)

They left it a few years before picking him up?! :eek:



:}

No!!

A nearby passing boat stopped whatever they were doing, and went and lifted him onboard!

It was all done in minutes - and only one or two minutes before I returned to claim a priority landing 'cos I was really, really short of petrol!!:sad::sad:

Reading all the posts so far in this thread just makes me want to say this: Thank you all, for what you did, what you are doing now and what you may be called upon to do in the future, for I am sure you will rise to any challenge.

You are very special people, and I for one really appreciate the effort and sacrifice all of you make, and I thank God for people like you.

Merry Christmas to you all!

Mike.

Starting the standard clearing turn out of Gib, on a call out for a very sick little girl who had to get to G.O.S. hospital, to be told to contact Spanish ATC who cleared us present position direct LHR. Laughing like hell at the Speedbird callsign, who, when told to take up the hold at 'the park' as we were cleared in direct from the coast of France, questioned why? The immediate offer from London of a diversion to Luton was met with a long silence and muted acknowledgment of his hold timings. Watching every man and his dog do their best to get her into the ambulance as quickly as possible and holding up everything else on the pan to do so. Being number 28 to taxi as we dropped the hospital callsign.... A proper nights work.

Having spent 22 years "before the mast" I have many great memories of my time in the Mob but flying commercial over the polar routes and enjoying hours of the northern lights is hard to beat.

The silence in the mess tent after the 3 megaton explosion at Christmas Island in 1958. No one knew what to say. Everyone had there own thoughts.

bob C

Assigned guard duty for laughing

keeping look out
 

was on a shack playing cards with the junior Nav when I spotted the fire warning on number two enginebefore anyone else!!Was a faulty fire detector but we found that most of the graviner fire bottles had not gone of!!Two hours out from Eastliegh!

Coming out of the Ops Block at 280SU on Olympus in winter after a night shift and finding myself standing on the top of a flat plain of white cloud with the sun burning my eyes.

Standing on Measles Rock at Mount Alice watching the F4s streak across the Plain of Lafonia before arcing up the hill and 10ft over my head.

Sitting on the beach at night on Ascension Island with a beer in my hand and watching the MIRV warheads twist and burn their way down through the sky.

At Staxton standing on the grass with the Stn Cdr (Taff Leyland) and the Mayoress of Scarborough after asking Mike Ch*****n if he could do a "gold chain" flypast. Watching him come in from the east dropping towards the top of the fence and turning to Taff and saying "He's fast" as he just cleared the top of the fence and pulled and we, and the bins and everything not tied down, were blown off our feet to lie on our backs and watch him twinkle-roll his way into the heavens. (She loved it too).

Ten weeks in Belize in 79 when I spent 90% of the time sunbathing on the Cayes as they never had more than one Harrier serviceable. A week in San Pedro where I'd spend all day out fishing then get the hotel to cook my catch for dinner. The exquisite headache as I had my first Pina Colada frappe in the evening with my feet buried in the hot sand of the beach bar. The 2 cats at Butcher radar - TACA and TAN and the "pet" boa constrictor we fed chickens when it got hungry. The jungle survival course with bashas, cabbage trees and AK-47s.....

One Saturday summer of '71 (can't check exact date as we are in France for the next few weeks:O), called out from standby at Lyneham to go to Wittering and collect some stuff to take to Le Bourget for a Harrier that had done a heavy landing,IIRC, at the Paris Air Show.

While en-route the crew of a Buccaneer had banged out at the air show - I think they may have been connected to a Victor tanker for the flypast, not sure but perhaps TTN will know!

When we arrived someone on the ground asked if we could take the Bucc' crew home to Honington; of course we could. The nav was laid out on a stretcher IIRC.

When we arrived at Honington the ramp was lowered and on rushed the Staish and the wives of the Bucc' crew, followed by much hugging and kissing and shedding of tears! The Staish thanked us for getting them home so soon and it gave us a really good feeling of a job well done.

Of course being a Saturday afternoon there was no customs officer there, so we thought bugger it let's get back to Lyneham. Swindon must have had a bad season cos' my mate Norman H, the skipper, got a right bollocking from the miserable customs guy, 'what was his name?', Pearce ?

Fortunately it didn't spoil the good feeling we all still had!

Buccaneer S.Mk.2 - XN978

Andy Marrs (pilot) and Bob Kemp (Nav) were demonstrating air-to-air refueling behind a Victor tanker at low level at the Paris Air Show! The effect of being ‘plugged in’ at low level in the turbulence that existed and vulnerable to the jet wake from the Victor meant that the Bucc was bumping around and eventually bounced one too many times for the pilot and crashed. Both ejected. Andy Marrs came down in his parachute into the fireball but, thankfully, the heat raised him up and the wind carried him clear – he had significant singeing! Bob Kemp walked away and was last seen climbing on board a C-130 to bring him home with a ‘bottle and 200’ which he had managed to acquire albeit he had never been intended to set foot in France on that sortie (or so the story goes)! We were never allowed to do low level tanking demonstrations whilst ‘plugged in’ ever again.

Best Memories
 

My never ending pleasure during 50 years in the cockpit was breaking out on top of 8/8 cloud and sitting in the sunshine whilst the folks on the ground endured the vagaries of the weather below.

Most exciting moments - shadowing the Turkish Invasion Fleet on it's way to Cyprus in 1974 from a Nimrod (and being escorted away by 2 Turkish fighters which were in turn being shadowed by 2 Lightnings from Akrotiri).

As a young liney on his first squadron in Germany I was offered a flight (my first) in the back of a Meteor NFII. Weather was very claggy as we climbed, then suddenly we broke out of the cloud into brilliant sunshine. I was quite thrilled seeing the cloud tops and being in a totally different world to the one I'd just left.
I flew in all the aircraft I worked on, apart from the Vulcan, but you never forget your first time!

Now there's a coincidence.
As you posted olddog I was typing

Turning upside down and sticking my tongue out at the world! :ok:

Quite a few to choose from, but two come out on top.

My only solo in a Chipmunk, and my penultimate Grading flight. You knew if you had a solo that you'd passed RN Grading. It was a sunny day in November.

Jumping out of an MC-130 into the Florida night at Hurlburt Field. No kit to release, a pure jolly.

Watching the sunrise on the Marshall Islands and then watching another sunrise the next day on Waikiki beach - all thanks to Aunty Betty and the 'round-the-world we go' mighty 'rod - happy days!

Getting airborne out of Waddo or Scampton and knowing that the next time the wheels hit the ground it would be in North America.

Cruising back into Darwin just before dawn in September 1998 on the first operational use of NVG for RAAF Caribou. We had been out for about eight hours at low level, dropped off a patrol of "bad guys" (we were enemy air), and watching the NVG sunrise as we approached Darwin. You could see the 'sunrise' creeping in from the east - until you flipped the goggs up and realised it was still pitch black outside. After teaching night tactical nav by moonlight through an open cockpit window, it was a God-send to see what we were trying not to hit...:D

Thermalling in a glider with three buzzards just off the wing tip. :ok:

Hovering in a Lynx in a confined area, manoeuvring around with just small movements of the cyclic, thinking "wow". :ok:

Looking outside the cockpit and being amazed at the lack of any visible means of support(as opposed to you FW types who can see your wings). :eek:

Just flying. :ok:

I'll go with sharing a thermal witrh buzzards

Laying in the grass on stag at a rail head near Hereford. The lights getting low, suddenly all hell breaks loose and a pair of Tornados come through the valley. presumably having targeted the facility and blow through with the burners on. Great feeling watching them do the business! Sounds corny I know, but it's what we were all there for.

If I am allowed another one. As the captain of the airborne spare Viictor for ihe Paris Air Show/Buccaneer crash mentioned earlier, seeing the looks of horror on the faces of the lead Victor crew as they climed out after the trip and then the relief when they learnt that the Bucc crew had survived

Doing night aerobatics in a Chipmunk with my QFI S/L John Shelton RIP ... Can't remember what JSP318 said about such things :ok:

As a very green first-tour engineering officer in the 1960s, accompanying SASO on a post-servicing air test on the Auster AOP9 which was used as a hack by group headquarters. Numbers complete and noted, was amazed to be taught by said officer how to fly round a cumulus cloud with port wing inside the cloud, and cabin and starboard wing outside it.

Those were the days. :ok:

Flying wise - I would definitely go for thermalling with the big birds in africa...fantastic :):):)

Being given the phone from one of my staff nurse's when in charge of a major Cardiac and Chest ICU in the UK. She said it was the MoD checking about a young VSI patient who had been admitted following an RTA. They said it was to check his condition because his brother was far away in harms way. I replied he was a Comp A, knowing I'd set in motion a system that would bring his brother to his bedside soonest. Just the very humble and outsider now start of a long chain of amazing people. Best thing I'd done in many years, with just one phone call and the lad was eventually discharged from hospital.

Being an ex PM, thankfully knew the system.

A flight attendant bringing us (non alchoholic)drinks on a reposition flight.

The two TACAN rule anyone?

The other guy was single and obliged her at the overnight.

I went to my room, damnit.

Early morning in a vertical roll watching the snow topped mountain’s being replaced by the white beach and blue yoggin on the wing tip. Feeling only as you have as a six, ten or 12 year old with that vibrancy of just being alive as if you can feel every molecule of air that you are breathing and every bit of sunlight touching you with this feeling being compounded and multiplied by getting out of a ****e desk job and back into the air.

Watching fog spilling over an escarpment and flowing down onto the plains as the sun rose to crystallise and magnify the colours.

The sudden realisation that I was no longer working at it and that is was just happening which meant I was now a professional amongst the other professional’s.

And possibly more than anything else.......... being surrounded by like minded people.

I was a bit tense pre-solo in the Bulldog. An ex-Lightning Instructor took me up on his night SCT. "We aren't supposed to do night aeros any more. Here's my sequence".
Next morning I went solo. Two days later I arrived at Binbrook on a week's visit. We spent the first 13 1/2 hours drinking as it was the Boss's leaving do. At the end of the week, thanks to an ex-UAS Sqn pilot, I was airborne in a Lightning. I got 15 minutes stick-time. When we landed, it was announced that Argentina had invaded the Falklands.

Hell of a week.

Three of the ages of aviation man:
Pulling the release knob in a glider and feeling the winch cable fall away.
Sitting in the mid-upper turret of a Shackleton on a dark, dark, arctic night and looking down on the strength of those long tapering wings, the steady glow of the Griffons' exhaust stubs and up at the millions of stars stretching right down to the horizon.
Sitting down with a Nimrod crew for a pre-dawn breakfast and realising that I hadn't put my teeth in. :uhoh:.

Flying an approach into Wattisham down to decision height and not going into the fog blanket.
Merry Christmas!

Still makes me smile. Dropping back underneath tends to do the opposite.

Forget all this flying stuff. Consider this.

Hullavington Mess in the early 1960's - tea time and a steward enters the ante room bearing the first tray of toast. By the time he reaches the table the gannets (aka students) had swooped and cleared the lot.

And the special memory? I got the last piece

231 OCU (canberra) - winter 1973ish...we were doing a 3 tank change outside (large bag tank in rear fuselage)...one of our sergeants was being helpful and taking a turn lacing up the tank,it was a very cold job and the snow was getting quite deep...so the rest of us repayed that kindness by rolling a huge snowball (at least 6 feet dia) and placing it behind his car... but what with the weight/pressure under that huge snowball...it froze solid to the ground and he could not move his car :);):ok:

Flying ultra low-level formation with a Kenyan AF Hawk (flown by an RAF exchange officer) in a Gazelle with the collective in my armpit. Got some cracking photos as well.

Honington. 0-dark-00, the night frost and the fog transformed to an eerie orange hemisphere with the Buccs lurking in the gloom and the shadows of the northern H dispersal. The flashing lights and the air of anticipation as the first of the nukes is trucked out from the SSA. Nobody allowed within the 'ring of steel' exclusion zone except for the cops and the plumbers and the certifying aircrew.

Exercise yes, but that was what we were there for if the real thing had happened.

2nd treasured memory: The trip in the BBMF Lancaster for the rehearsal for the RAF 75th at Marham. Was just before I left the RAF after 30 years and what a memory! The rehearsal was done in stupendous CAVOK weather but the 75th itself was an almost complete wash out.

Memories
 

Breakfast (Full fat) in the mess at Boulmer after a long night shift mid winter in the R12 as a JAFAD, and climbing to the top of the HF200 for the view.

Famine Relief in Somalia on C130's from Mombasa, work hard and play very hard!

Going full circle and working as an E3D Air Eng with the guys from Boulmer good times in rosy glasses! :ok:

TG