Remember these beasts?
 

Petrol cooker

Yes, but shouldn't it be in a trench?

ACW

I remember, on a certain well-known Towers' annual tented Rock Ape Funfest in the forests of Germany in the late 60's , waking most mornings to hearing the pre-dawn mutterings of the breakfast cooking detail as they scratched about and tripped over each other in the camp catering area.
This morning Reveille would shortly afterwards be followed up by the side of the tent facing the food area lighting up to the WHOOMPH! of the stove igniting : accompanied by a stream of expletives as yet another Flight Cadet had duly singed his eyebrows.

Preferably in an enemy trench!

Playing with fire
 

On the subject of "playing with fire" check out this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILA1ic-Q8_E

Apparently the 5 burner "suitcase" style field kitchen (with the fold out table) was also originally issued with duel fuel (gas/petrol) capacity. Must have made the morning fry up taste lovely with all those petrol fumes!

That's taken me back a few years. Weren't they called 'Hydraburners'?

I have a petrol equivelant of the Primus stove vapourising cooker.
Frightens the crap out of me in a way paraffin doesn't.

......issued with duel fuel

Crikey!:eek: At how many paces?:confused:

Jack

I recently put together an account of my involvement in the goings on in 1982 (nothing to exciting). Not really relevant but a good story from Stanley in July of that year.

"A more humorous story that did the rounds at the time concerned the catering arrangements of various units. As previously mentioned the MCSU had set up shop to the North of the runway, however, a large number of units/formations dotted around the islands were self catering for a variety of reasons. The standard piece of issue kit for cooking in the field was a petrol fuelled stove/cooker. These were universally disliked and considered quite dangerous by most who had used them. The consequence of this was that over the years most tactical units (Army & RAF) had invested (from unit funds) in two-ring camping gas stoves and a supply of butane gas cylinders, TCW was no different in this regard and despite taking a large supply of gas bottles with us they would not last forever and there wasn't a gas plant on the Islands to replenish them. This problem had been anticipated by the supply people at the airfield who had sent a signal to UK for 2,000 butane gas bottles to be flown down. They subsequently arrived, the outcome, one very embarrassed supply officer wishing he had asked for FULL ones".

Maybe send one to Akrotiri so that the night shift can toast their cheese sandwiches.

My dad was an AA superintendent in Scotland in the 1950s. At that time the AA had a Dragon Rapide which was flown by an ex WW2 Mosquito pilot with a splendid handlebar moustache. In the winter when motorists in the Highlands could get stuck in snow drifts for days the Rapide was used to air-drop emergency supplies, which included a mini petrol cooker. These were nothing like as scary as the ones being discussed here. My dad acquired one and I used it for camping for many years, and as it didn't need pressurising it was a lot easier to use than the then common paraffin stove. Once you got used to the fact you were burning petrol, not paraffin, I found they had the opposite effect on me, Basil, although my mates often retired to a safe distance when I got it out to make a brew!

Here's the Rapide, which was painted in AA black and yellow (scroll down for the pic).

Aircraft of the Automobile Association.

PETROL STOVES
 

Great for camping in winter, GAZ was not hot enough when the temp. was low. Ideal on the motorbike, as you had fuel in hand, although lead used to block the wick, and when you got the tent up and wanted a brew and meal it was frustrating trying to light the thing, and pretty scary under the awning if it was raining!

Yes, a Hydraburner should ideally be set up in a small trench, they go rather well on Avgas!

The no1 Burner, a most excellent piece of kit.

However, if it started leaking from the pressurization system (i.e. behind the heat shield) and you didn't catch it in time to kill the flame, all you could do was run away, because it would go up in a sheet of flames. I never saw one explode, but it wasn't unknown, apparently. I certainly saw a couple go up in flames.

Lazy Man water boiler and a few Jerry cans of harrier juice. Saviour of morale when out camping with the vertical killing machine in the wilds of Vandel.

Definitely not a good idea to refuel the Number 1 burner by the light of a hurricane lamp, as one of our PSIs found out. The subsequent conflagration burnt out the seals, so the rest of the exercise was cooked on hexi

Perhaps instead of selling them off they should have sent one to the Tornado Det at Akrotiri. With a bit of self-help initiative they could have negated the need for (as I write) 34 pages of comment on AARSE about the "RAF Morale Failure at Akrotiri" !

I jest of course - numerous other options available to solve that one as discussed on the relevant thread.

I seem to remember a RAF Cook losing an arm while cleaning one of these during GW1...On the Puma Det I think?