When your first solo was closer to the first flight of the Sopwith Camel than it is to today.

When you know a PAR was called a GCA :ugh:

when you had three in the circuit, all practicing one in ones and the radar was a S264.
You had to boil a kettle to get the MTI to work :O

When you thought a T3 Bombsight "computer" was complicated.

Decca chains?

If you handed in your Ration Book at attestation!:sad:

........ when you are explaining to the chap in the museum how to use a piece of kit (GPI in this particular instance)......

Sad isn't it?

Regards,

Vernon

ARAR/ARAX was cutting edge EW kit

When your sim instructor was a Master Pilot.

I defer to my elders :D

When 'Zero Reader' was the latest
technical and flight aid gizmo

An overseas training flight (remember them?) to Valkenburg was a thinly veiled excuse for a weekend in Amsterdam

Oh dear gods we had one of those on the (pre-Mod) Dominie.

Flying a raw ILS was far simpler than buggering about with that piece of ****e!

Sadly however, the ME Stds QFIs insisted upon us using it for IRTs.


(Bastards!)

We did a Group 2 End of Course run to Valkenburg on a 4-6 week basis on the Dominie.

I generally stayed in Leiden - Amsterdam held no interest for me after my first visit.

..... You attend a service function at a former unit, and no one knows what a pair of "shreddies" are, particularly when they claim to be ex Halton apprentices.

Smudge :ok:

My FLYING instructor was a Master Pilot.

When you've been to more funerals than weddings. :(

When you completely understand those who march past the cenotaph every Remembrance Sunday.

When you smile at the youngsters who are doing the job you did, knowing that they are a precise clone and wishing that you were in their shoes.

When you relate to knackered old sh 1ts who post such sentimental nonsense on Internet forums. :)

. . . when the Link Trainer instructor on 4 FTS was a Sergeant.

When somebody you regularly got pi**ed with as a student becomes a High Court Judge. At least I now have a decent character witness when I need one.

As a Cpl. Techie at Bassingbourn I was responsible for testing and calibrating the Zero Reader. One day a QFI pitches up in the Inst Bay to see it being tested etc. It had very recently been installed in the T4's and he was having a bit of trouble getting the studes to accept using it, especially on approaches.
After some chat he suggests that I meet him next morning for a trip, with a view to me trying it out for real. So off we go with a stude nav. and he hands over the controls and talks me through some gentle turns, dives and climbs, strictly using just the ZR. Eventually we head for Honington and at the top of the descent he tells me to follow the the ZR down, keeping my head down in the cockpit, until he says ''I have control''.
(God knows what the the young nav in the back was thinking!) This I did, whilst he handles the non-essential tasks such as u/c, flaps, trim, throttles, radio etc. No sooner had he said ''I have control' and it seemed, we touched down, did a roller and headed off back home.
As we walked back to the line hut he said ''thanks corp, I'll be able to tell the studes that if a bloody corporal can fly the ZR so can you!

And we had the last flying one on the OCU, one as a SWO and one in the tower


When bed packs were the norm in training, not duvets, and the toilet paper was the only Government white paper worth a poo..

( That had Government property written on each sheet, as if anyone would steal it, you could have waterproofed Noah's ark with it and if I was a betting man it probably still blocking up the local sewerage works. Bio degradable was not invented then. :O )

Lol worse than that it appears someone liked the stuff

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Government...-/231131923124

Eheu ! fugaces labunter anni.
 

When you think that the old (DH) Dominie had an u/c to worry about ( sorry, goudie, it was just too good to resist ! ) And you were old enough to spot the error.

When you finally realise that, even allowing for inflation, you've probably drawn more in pension from the RAF than ever you were paid in service.

When you could say "Finals, two Greens".

When people in their fifties have the temerity to appear on this Thread (oh, to be 50 again !).

:(

I've been walking with my U3A group today, probably late 50's to early 70's and it's wonderful to know that after six miles my aching ankle is as nothing to the aching hips and arthritic knees. I feel almost young again. I love old people, they make me feel so zestful.

museum piece
 

York railway museum has a diesel that was built in 1957 by the company where I was an apprentice so I had my photo taken holding one of the sand box tops which I had made!!D5500 for those of a spotting ilk!!Our factory was built about 1850 and was pretty much the same when I was there.One reason why I left to join the RAF!!!

You go to Duxford and see a couple of types you flew when they were front line.
(Sorry if this thought has already been posted, I have not read every post).

You have to explain what a Radio Range approach was, and that you had to do one under the hood once a year to renew your Green Ticket.

NCO Aircrew
 

Slight thread drift.

My 1st posting after of Boys training was Bomber Command Bombing School Lindholme. May 1954

The a/c were Lincolns and Varsity's, many of the Pilots were NCO's and a lot of them had Polish names!

The Nav's tended to be officers, but I believe that this was something to do with them also being the instructors.

... when you remember you could keep NAAFI meat pies warm in the waveguide of the GCA truck and no one had a microwave in the kitchen.


P.S. 'Government Property' loo paper (shiny side down) was superb for covering newly filled dinks etc. on car bodywork - it imparted a wonderfully smooth finish!!

When you don't understand most modern service acronyms

.
.
.
.

and are none the wiser when they are explained to you.

When there was a Station Flight with an Anson and a Vampire.

In Bomber Command, Station Flight was usuallly 1 or 2 Ansons and a few Chippies. (Should that be Chippy's?).

As much as I am enjoying this thread, shouldn't it be over in 'Aviation History and Nostalgia'?

Nah; nostalgia's a thing of the past.

Herod,

Yeah - it's not what it used to be!:)

When, due to the movement of the Earths Magnetic Field, many of the runway headings you knew have changed.

What?! ;) :=

It would become awash with civilians regaling us with tales of "A bumpy approach to Luton in my Viscount/DC-4" :eek:

I did many more pax hours in civilian life, than in my 13 years service. A lot of it intercontinental, travelling business class :D. The best was the sadly now defunct Varig. A classic example of a national 'Flag Carrier' subsudised by the taxpayer.

So how about a leg from Khartoum to Aden over Ethiopia, thown all over the sky, followed by a so called landing in a Hastings, that bounced at least 4 times at Khormaksar?

Transport Commands finest, made a point of informing us Bomber Command pax, that he'd left the job to his 'newish' No2.

We let him apologise by buying beer.

After 3 weeks at Karachi, where we all got dysentry, the return leg Khormaksar to Khartoum was enlivend by the Elsans spashing all over the a/c.:ugh::ugh::ugh:

Memories of fillet steak and Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the same posting as a Transport Command cardboard boxed lunch and orange squash. Can't get much more diverse than that can we?

You know you're getting old when....

Someone starts a thread on PPrune called Should I sacrifice my braces to attempt to become a pilot in the RAF?

You remember when you picked up the 'phone and the girl said "Number, please".

Funnily enough my first business trip overseas as a "civvie" was exactly that -down to Rio in a Varig DC-10 in 1982. It made a change from a sleeping bag and ear defenders in a hammock in a C 130 .
However, many years later, courtesy of the S.A.A.F., I took Mrs.Haraka along in a Herc to show her what her old man used to put up with - she loved it.

When ALL the operational stations you served on have been closed and ALL the aircraft types scrapped

When you remember that the French aircrew in-flight rations you picked up at Istres included a small caraffe of red wine

Going to a Squadron reunion and wondering who all the old men are. And then discovering they arrived on the unit long after your time.