A colleague of mine got into difficulty trying to herd a flight of six Gazelles through the Brize overhead. He managed to get them on frequency, but the check-in threw him a bit.
"Gaz Flt, lead, check-in."
"One"
"Two"
"Three"
"Four"
"Five"

ATC and the flight of Lynx already on freq were then treated to five minutes of recounts.

Listening on the London Mil ICF one fine day years ago whilst (ahem) testing a scanning receiver:

"London Mil, this is... er, oh, I forgot my callsign".

"Station calling, are you the lead of an A-10 pair on handover?"

"Affirm, sir"

"Roger, adopt the callsigns Dummy One and Dummy Two. Dummy One, pass your message".

"OK, er, Dummy One is..." (etc)

There are, of course, the real PITA moments when you want the frequency clear …

"Tengah Tower, Classic Magpie check" …
"Magpie 2 …
"Three …
"Four …
"Tengah Tower, Classic Magpie, taxi 4 to Butterworth, standard departure, climbing FL310"

It wouldn't have been quite as bad if I hadn't been trying, at the same time, to shout "OVERSHOOT, OVERSHOOT" to a certain 20 Hunter pilot who appeared to have failed to lower the dangling wheely things.

An elegant roller on the 230 gal tanks [scraped the paint on one, split the weld seam on the other] and a long draggy climb away, ensured he would survive to be CAS.
(Sorry, Sir, Your Lordship/Airship, but forking impressive reactions and recovery)
:O

(Apologies, that's probably a bit off-topic)

Departure from Pope AFB, N. Carolina, routing Gander.

I should point out that the Area Radar (Washington Centre) would normally route you 'around the houses' before taking you out to sea so as to avoid the airspace around Washington and New York. Furthermore, some of the reporting points were on the Lo but not the Hi Chart (and vice versa), which often meant a lot of 'husbandry' (ie panic) by the Nav as he/she threw charts around the Nav Station.

On this particular occasion we are handed over to Washington Centre who, strangely, clear us 'Direct Gander'.

Nav gives a snap (ie made up) heading and off we jolly well trot.

About 15 minutes later we hear:

"ASCOT 4567, are you RNAV equipped?"

Quick as a flash the Captain, A* H*** comes back with:

"Negative. We have a Nav, and he's called Bob."

To which the response:

"Well tell Bob to turn 30 degrees left!"






Oh how we laughed...

Cannot remember where I heard it but on guard was reportedly heard " unidentified airfield with a Cessna circling in your overhead, please identify yourself". Made me chuckle.

Bimbling north up the Ambers a few years back when a company aircraft checked in going t'other way.

"London hello XXX123 flight level 240 direct Pole Hill"
"XXX123 London g'day and in a couple of minutes there'll be a pair of F3s climbing through your level working military, just letting you know so you don't get surprised"
"XXX123 roger, I spent 20 years flying Harriers in the air force and I've never been surprised by an F3 yet"

Would've been better if the F3s had been on the frequency but we all had a giggle anyway.

Nice one J** :ok:

Late '70's Leeming Approach Room.

ATC Supervisor sat quitely entering lies into the ATC Sup Logbook. Young Plt Off sat on a very quiet Zone.

YPO (full of devilment and boredom) sees an chance of a wind up. He 'invents' an aircraft and promptly gives it a radar service. Three quarters the way through his chitter chatter, he (in a loud and annoyed voice) says "Mayday, wait!".

The effect on the ATC Sup was, well I think you can guess. His desk was kicked over, his chair went 180° in the opposite direction and apoplexy set in.

Oh how we laughed.

Linton 1984. Us baby pilots had to do "an hour in the tower" each month to make us more Air Traffic Aware. I duly plugged into the back of the most attractive WRAF FO in the radar room as a Lightning was handed to her from Tower. The poor girl never stood a chance!

FO: good morning xxx, call passing flight level 80.

Lightning: Passing FL 220, do you want me to descend?

FO: (oblivious to sarcasm) Negative, would you like clearance through (airway) Blue 4?

Lightning: Nope, going over the top.

FO: Roger, what is your ETA for Binbrook?

Lightning: 4 minutes, switching to Binbrook radar. Bye.

I learned about Air Trafficers from that!

MPN11 - Not PS by any chance?

One couldn't possibly comment, Sir. :cool:

Eastern Radar, early 70s,, Mildenhall CAC console, to a KC-135 in the maelstrom that was the radar picture back then ... Something like ...

"C/s, traffic in your 3 o'clock 5 miles 2000 above under this Units control, further traffic 10 o'clock 10 miles manoeuvring indicating 5000 above, further traffic 12 o'clock 20 miles under our control at FL 160 ... Etc "

"Roger, Sir, no contact, but this airplane is like a tree full of owls." :cool:

MPN11 - Lovely guy all the same - had a room in the same corridor at Cranditz in the 60s. One of those guys you are really pleased made it to the top. There were others in that Entry.........................

Very liberal in the Junior Service!
Not Mil related, but when you called up for a WX brief at your inbound airport in Sub-Saharan Africa, it was always the same, day in, day out, without fail, parrot fashion over the radio. After the controller had finished, you would then ask (considering you were less than 15 miles away and could see the towering CB's), which end of the runway was clearer, to be told the rain was too heavy to see the ramp, let alone the runway!

Recently flying back from somewhere with mate P1ing, me sat in RH throne. Had a total electrical failure, everything dead. Him dealing with FRCs, I shout at him 'Shall I squawk 7700?'.

He shouts back 'Not much kin point is there.....'

Ah, yes....

Alright, I'll bite...

Cue lighthouse story...

There was this lighthouse and in it was a club for oficers that no one else could join unless they were officers or Chinese. The Chinese took the railings for scrap and some other people sold the contents of the library on e bay.

The sign above the door said 'Last refuge for the poor and needy via the side door please, class and snobbery via the front' '

In the lamp room were airships who shone their teeth to provide light and nuspeak to provided succour before absailing down their wallets to claim first rites at the Grauniad to tell stories of want and decay after Mr Pension was warm and secure in their arse pocket.

Meanwhile on planet earth...

British Airways contacting Bangkok Approach

"Bangbird this is Speedcock"

I was following a Lightning on a PAR for a practice diversion at Waddington once. He went around at minimums - the director controller was a little confused about the blip which appeared to be stationary (no SSR at Wad in those days). She asked him what his heading was. The reply was "straight up". My QFI invited me to take a look from under my hood to see the planform of a Lightning in a vertical climb.

In his book, Sled Driver, SR-71/ Blackbird pilot Brian Shul writes: "I'll always
remember a certain radio exchange that occurred one day as Walt (his backseater)
and I were screaming across Southern California, 13 miles up.
We were monitoring various radio transmissions from other aircraft and the
Los Angeles Air Traffic Control Center as we entered the Los Angeles area airspace.
Though they didn't really control us, the Center did monitor our movement across their scope.

I heard a single-engine Cessna ask for a read-out of its ground speed.

"90 knots," Center replied.

Moments later, a Twin Beech requested the same.

"120 knots," Center answered.

We weren't the only ones proud of our ground speed that day; as almost
instantly an F/A-18 smugly transmitted, "Ah, Center, Dusty 52 requests ground speed readout."

There was a slight pause, then the response, "525 knots on the ground, Dusty."

Another silent pause. As I was thinking to myself how ripe a situation this was,
when I heard a familiar click of a radio transmission coming from my backseater.
It was at that precise moment I realized Walt and I had become a real crew, for
we were both thinking in unison. "Center, Aspen 20, you got a ground speed readout for us?"

There was a longer than normal pause.... "Aspen 20, I show 1,742 knots."

There were no further ground speed inquiries.

Operating midway between Socotra and the Seychelles in the early 90's we had been working Mogadishu (out of courtesy) on HF for a couple of hours. We slowly moved west during the sortie and when in range of land our baby co-pilot contacted Mogadishu on VHF and after initial comms established...

Co: "We have been working Mogadishu on Hotel Fox for the last 2 hours"
ATC: "c/s, Roger, what is your aircraft type?"
Co: "we are a Nimrod, I spell N-I-M-R-O-D, Nimrod"
ATC: "Roger, who is your operator?"
Co (confused look on face): "Say again sir"
ATC: "c/s, who is your operator?"
Co: "Errr, my... my operator is Sgt McC***"
P1 (jumping in): "Mogadishu this is c/s, my operator is BritMil!"


Of course we didn't take the piss out of the co for the rest of that flight - no, wait.... we did :ok: