Cerney218

Interesting choice of name! If you were on 218 Course at South Cerney you may be interested in looking at another thread entitled '230 Course South Cerney' - lots about the various SC course in the mid-60s.

B48N ex- 218 South Cerney

Cerney. . M
 

I was on 218, and found this forum through the 230 course thread. 3

I believe that the "chateaubriand for two for one" was coined in the Equatorial hotel in Singapore. "Actual" meal entitlements were accumulated through the day to pay for a decent repast. When on rates, roughly £15 for breakfast and £20 for lunch/dinner, eating on the ground (EOG) was actively discouraged in favour of contributions to the "kitty". That's why, when down the route, the first tray of in flight sandwiches disappeared before start checks in the morning.
Dougie M ex 188 Cse South Cerney

Cerney
 

Brian & Dougie
Second part of my reply. I am row 2, second from right behind Sgt Greenop.

Sorry for thread drift everyone else.

Hi C218,
You had me scratching my head, particularly as I was aware of 2 from our course photo' who 'left' in 66. Both back row, 3rd from left sadly chopped from our nav' course - I bumped into him in Ciren' a few years later and he seemed to be happy with an international bank - 4 further along from him also got chopped at nav' school and I bumped into him in Hong Kong in '68 and he was a trainee police inspector there.
It was announced on Where are they Now? that Al McDicken ( back row ) passed away a couple of weeks ago and also that someone was trying to trace Garth Bennett ( behind the Group Capt' ). One or two of the others have posted on Prune in the past.

Sorry for thread drift again folks, but the latter was a Herc' man.

Brian - directly behind you 2 rows up.

Brian.
I'm afraid that Garth Bennet is also no longer with us. I'm not sure of the date.

After we received rather a strange signal from Command Accounts about accommodation in Cyprus, I did some delving. The VC10 AAR force would arrive at Akrotiri and simply ask "Where are we staying?". If it was on-base in single rooms, then fine - the usual kebab in the village was on the cards. So why the signal...

It turned out that some C-130 crews were lying about co-location of the crew and demanding to stay off-base, which had rightly annoyed the Ops staff who had worked out the accommodation plan at a particularly busy time - hence the bollocking signal to all AT/AAR crews.

Another time we were U/S at Andrews waiting for a C-130 to bring a replacement engine. They shambled up to the posh hotel in which were staying with a huge poly bag of leftover inflights (to save spending their allowances) and their 'crew bar' from which they began to drink at reception whilst arguing about room allocation. Ill-mannered trash hauling peasants, WTF did they think they were doing?

But that wasn't quite as bad as a night at Goose. For some reason crews were staying in the Lab Inn. Next day I paid the accom. bill from the FSI and off we went to the RAFU. Where we heard that a Nimrod crew had buggered off without paying their bill, so I was asked to pay it from our FSI - it seems that the Nimrod mob had expected the RAFU to pay. Accommodation - fine. But the restaurant and huge bar bill they'd run up, expecting the Queen to pay? No way! I advised the RAFU admin folk to speak directly to Kinloss and to recover the costs directly from the crew, whose names were known.

The greed and piss-poor behaviour of some crews down route was an utter embarrassment to others and ruined life for them. No-one expected us to be choirboys, but the fraud and lies of some crews really was too much. At one point it got so bad that Nimrod crews were banned from the better hotels at Lajes.

Sorry to sound so negative, but I used to get utterly fed up with the way some people ruined things for the rest of us.

Hmmm - perhaps try to keep the thread on a positive note not cross-fleet bitching....

I always recall the transop stating 'co-location authorised' in my time - don't see how any crew could get away with lying about it as Akronelli ops got the transop and they were the signers of the all powerful Form 95!!!

Sky, Sycamore et al - re Synchronization of props/engines. Alas I don't know how (or even if when down the back en route FI etc) the Herc engines were synchro'd, but it was (unfortunately) the pilot's job in the Shack, ably assisted by an instrument called a 'Synchrometer;(?) consisting of three small props, the idea of which was by minor movement of the RPM levers you could stop rotating, at which point the thrumming would stop although not the noise. As Sycamore says this was also accompanied by prayers, incantations and the odd sacrifice, but I found the imminent threat of a bash round the ears by the Flt Eng was the most compelling reason to become proficient by sortie No 2 on the OCU (MOTU)

Oh, and for further info on formation flying we left the outboards at constant power and just played with the inboard throttles to maintain position.

Shackman

Herc engines were electronically "synchrophased" ... synchronised first, to all run at exactly the same rpm, then "phased" so that the blades lead or trailed the "master" (either inboard could be chosen) by an exact amount of degrees. This ensured (or so the blurb said) that the noise levels / vibration levels were at a minimum throughout the airframe .. originally not done for crew/passenger comfort at all .. but as a way of reducing airframe fatigue !!

FE's were required to know how the system worked, but in reality it was "select a master on the switch, if it all works, leave it alone ". As the system was quite complex there were several more complicated procedures for restting/fault handling, but generally it was a pretty good system.

Hours of fun asking/answering complex questions during a ground cat!! (NOT !!) :)

Joanne B,
you sent me PM ref your father (ex Beverley and Hercules Air Engineer) but I am having difficulty persuading the system to reply to you. Perhaps you could post your queries on this thread where the corporate body of knowledge may help you in your quest

Strat...

Demobbed.org.uk is the best resource : Demobbed - Out of Service British Military Aircraft

XV200 is in Africa I believe.

Done my bit, got my bit...


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a5b294f4f8.jpg

Topical!!!!!!!!!
 

Still got many boxes to go through but this photo is rather topical!!
By the way, does anyone remember navigator Tom Norcross, last seen at his lovely cottage in Castle Coombe back in the late
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....6b3e217f59.jpg