The Urban Myth (or maybe the truth) around Coningsby in the 80s gave the origins of the outbrief to the Guy who drove the crew bus around the dispersals during the V Force days. Having got fed up of returning to ops for maps/crypto/leg restraints etc etc he cane up with a list which he shouted out after everyone was seated,

2Planks - you'd have seen pretty much the same thing on the bus taking MR2 crews to the jet. It was needed given we had about 20 bags / boxes / items (including top of the list - "Tea Pot"). A SAR scramble meant 2 minibuses instead which sometimes led to the "I thought it was on the other bus" gotcha. Was a good indicator of the diligence of the junior wettie or dry man i/c 'the checklist' as to how often they would have to traipse back to ops or the jet to collect something. Happy days!

On the Tin Triangle, we used the 1 GSU approved Vulcan Crew Brief:


I don't recall ever having to return to Ops to collect 'forgotten' items though.

wasn't that what your AEO was for? :)

BEagle, one vital action missed from that check list:

Copilot - rations

One Vulcan trip, Aden to Gan, 6 bottles of squash, box of bites size sarnies each - no water to dilute the squash.

One Shack trip, 10 hours plus - no cups.

The Crew Brief was held before the pre-flight meal, during which rations would be ordered, for collection on the way out of the Aircrew Feeder.

So rather pointless to mention in-flight catering during the briefing. Which was for more serious matters than the feeding of fat navigators.

Re rations. Ferrying two F4s CGY to ASI. Four white boxes, one litre bottle of diluted orange squash, four paper cups. Er?

gotta love in-flight - maybe they thought you could formate up real close, pop the canopy and pass round the drinks....:)

there are blunties and there are BLUNTIES! Bluntest blunties tended to be caterers - who seemed to have no perception of what went on outside the 4 walls of their empire. However, the odd invitation to the waterfront "to see what we are up to" might have helped.

I thought i was going to be the subject of a BOI when a E3 TD got chicken instead of beef curry one day. He was about to have a "chat" with in-flight, it was there stuff up after all, but i was advised by the Captain that it was better we kept in-flight on side, to which i foolishly agreed. Great he said, you take the bullet instead then!! Cheers for that Captain :)

Without the nav rad,no soup or sarnies.

At Cottesmore, we often ate before the crew brief when we expected either tech delay or scrub. Almost every trip involved a replan following tech delay as the aircraft configuration dictated the mission - mandatory elements such as ECM run, bomb sight calibration, TFR or not. Then changing target order following new range slots etc etc.

Delays of 4 hours were not unheard of so a late brief was norm.

Ref Courtney Mil's #47

Mount Pleasant topped that CGY level of catering for F4s.

Op Lampuca, the swap out of F4s. The request was for 4 boxes of sandwiches, apples, Mars Bars and soft drinks, for the 7 1/2 hr flight to ASI. An hour or so into the flight the first box was opened and found to contain all the sandwiches, the second box in the same aircraft had all the Mars Bars! The other aircraft had all the drinks and apples. One of the crews had quite a thirst on arrival at ASI!!

The next flight some six month's later were issued with Pot Noodles!!

Oh, God. Maybe we should have explained more carefully. Or maybe we were expecting too much. Maybe we had been sent exactly what we asked for. Maybe we expected everything to be pre-sorted and maybe all we needed to do was divi it up ourselves.

Still, it's funny now.

And the OC Catering at Colt that was invited to the Jag Sim - having just about mastered getting the thing in trim he was handed a hard boiled egg and an orange to peel - point made!!

2planks - f...ing BRILLIANT - just spilt my coffee down the keyboard, almost. Still laughing. Made up for finding we have to contact out "Open Skies"!