RAF100 Exibition at Lyneham
 

I’ve only just become aware of this. Sadly the first talk is sold out.

RAF100: A History of RAF Lyneham at REME Museum - 16th January ? 16th June 2018 - REME Museum

For a few who may like?:
RAF Operation Deep Freeze 30 Sqn. Photos & Memorabilia 1972.

In November 1972, RAF Hercules C130 aircraft from Lyneham, Wiltshire, based out of Christchurch New Zealand to resupply the Antarctic research stations from McMudo station. They astonished the Americans by landing with wheels rather than skis!!! The resupply was from the 26th November 72 to the 8th of December & each return flight was about 14 hrs flying time.

This collection of 9 photographs, taken by the official USN photographers PHC Ralph Payne/Richard Beaudet on the 26/11/1972 (11-26-72 for the Colonials), shows LCDR Ralph Lewis greeting the RAF pilot, Sqn. Ldr. E.G. Waddingham & various shots of Hercules & base camp.

Anyone remember carrying Das Boot around at full MOS

Das Boot
 

Carried one back from the Far East. Flight planning was interesting, I never did more Vno, drift down and wing relieving calculations for 'real'. It was like one of 'Dolly' Grey's classroom plots. It helped when the captain persuaded the operators to remove all the beer from the boat!

TBT, the other photos in the album look a little colder......

ORAC - Now that’s interesting, the other photos in the album aren’t mine and not posted by me. The photo I posted was only scanned yesterday so has not been posted before.

Checks Complete - We were taking it out to the Far East, and ended up in Colombo for a #3 Engine Oil Cooler Leak, tried to get out after ‘fixing’ it but still remained once airborne. Biggest Fuel Dump I’ve ever done. Then once we eventually did get out, we got a full smoke & fumes 80 minutes out of KL at night in the middle of the worst tropical storm I’ve ever seen. Flight Deck ConPac shed it’s bearings. Cue 4 nights in KL :)

Storms at night in that part of the World are never much fun, especially with a very high ZFW. I seem to remember we had a fairly uneventful trip back. Think we had a couple of days in Colombo CCWR problems.

Yeah, our Cloud & Clunk was u/s outbound from Colombo, dodging the centres with the help of the lightning was a mind sharpening experience.

Das Boot
 

Not sure if I don’t have a revised loading scheme set of drawings from JATE in the mid 90s.
I visited Little Creek and Dam Neck a few times. On return our guys were keen to develop a similar Airdrop scheme. I think the second word was “off”. The PAC 28 DRIB was overweight requiring dispensation on overloaded chutes. Not sure if they have dropped bigger since I left.
There may be an earlier version of the LRIC preserved at Shrivenham.
At least the fit would be more comfortable in the A400.

Mike Preston,

Former RAF Herc' pilot - 48 Sqn 67-70, followed by 47 Sqn 70-73, has recently died.

His funeral is on Tuesday 15th May at 1300 at South Oxfordshire Crematorium OX13 5PA then after at The Nag's Head, Abingdon

60 years of the Hercules
 

Over one Million hits on this thread. Coff would have been proud!

70th anniversary of the battle of Arnhem

Given the request for information regarding the Hercules, how many remember the "Frozen" (Star/Crane/Griffin) exercises we used to hold in January in Goose Bay? The plan was a long range para insert onto Gosling Lake, followed by a week of Low Level flying including Air Drops to the Inuits at their "teach the kids the old ways" settlement ( never could work out why we had to Air Drop a freezer to them however). One highlight of the many years i did the exercise was the social evening where a Captain (Biscuit) was so proud of his Xmas jumper bought for him by his wife, he had successfully spent the entire week upsetting people so said jumper was cut off him and displayed (in tatters) behind the bar. Many more stories of events on that particular exercise.

http://i65.tinypic.com/xlkosi.jpg
I always enjoyed Frozen Star!

Whilst browsing back through the thread one of the few remaining grey cells kicked in and I remembered something that happened when we took XV 292 to Marietta for the 25th anniversary visit or at least I think it did. I have memories of having a briefing from Lockheeds on their C130 H.T.T.B. or at least I think that was the abbreviation, High Tech Test Bed in full. It was their frame for any possible updates or mods to the basic frame, slats is one thing I think was mentioned. I also believe it crashed some years later. Does anybody else have any memories of this during the visit or of the H.T.T.B.?

I saw it in Paris in 1985. Unfortunately static only, but the glossy black paint job was gorgeous:
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....e04ecfba00.jpg
https://flic.kr/s/aHskMh6bK9

I can almost smell the avtur

Jackw106, thanks for the YouTube link. The bread and butter work of the Hercules Force very well displayed. I was never privileged to witness the work of the despatchers down the back, being otherwise engaged up front. The sheer hard work of recovering the static lines and bags is clear. 17 years after my time and they'd repainted the hulls, but the work seems much the same. The weight those guys had to go out carrying is truly impressive.

Chug just keeping the thread alive my last decent from the Fat Albert was in 1980 most of the guys carried 100 lbs in weight standing in the stick waiting to jump was uncomfortable and a relief to get out of the air craft

And it didn't get any better when the system went to Para-Wedge!