Spent many a happy time with USN, RAAF, RN and Canadian exchanges guys on the kipper fleet. Funny thing was that no-one ever asked why an RAF officer was sporting a full set, as I did. I wasn't the only one, either....

And why does a General become embroiled in such trivia?

And my knees are knackered.

'Twas a time when most sensible V-Force crew carried 14 days rations, would have come in handy had we had to hide in a fighter trench for a fortnight.

Remember our famous POW duo, not like a racing snake and one built for comfy. Being a racing snake didn't help.

The same reason the hat police go mental somewhere like KAF or BSN!

Do you still need topis?

In ASI only the gp capt and 3 sqn ldr wore caps

The RSAF aircrew, especially the more orthodox of them, always had problems with mask seals, though they would never admit it.

TO CONFORM OR NOT TO CONFORM
 

Courtney, I agree with you 95%, but during my exchange tour there were one or 2 issues with my USAF hosts. I was requested to wear USAF wings, to which I objected, because I earned RAF wings and was/am quite proud of them. Eventually they agreed I should wear an RAF flight suit with appropriate USAF unit patches.
They also asked me to wear experience stars (hours flown on fighters and shown on the left sleeve of the flight suit) I did not like this much either, but when the Wing Commander found I had more stars than him, they again took my view!
They also did not like the look of RAF flying boots, but when I developed a first rate set of blisters trying to wear in their rock stiff footies, again they agreed ours were more comfortable.
Never had long hair or a set of any type so no issues there.
Overall, when there were any minor problems common sense always prevailed.
Great tour, happy memories.

I understand from a friend who did an exchange tour the length of grass in the lawn could be a bigger issue than hair length or facial fungus

TO CONFORM OR NOT TO CONFORM
 

Ah Yes Wanderer,
I neglected to add this slight disagreement to my list; however it was sorted out eventually!!

As a slight aside, I wonder why people seem to have problems with my nom-de -plume- it is Wander00, which would normally be spelt "Wanderoo", which is a lion-tailed macaque (Macaca silenus), an Old World monkey endemic to the Western Ghats of South India. It is also the name of a boat I had years ago. But the nom-de-plume is "Wander00", not "Wander", nor "Wanderer". Thanks.............W

Wander00
 

I have often wandered about your nom de plume!

Nom de PPruNe, surely?

Is that some obscure sexual euphemism.....:\

As a lowly engineer (Joke!), I mistakenly interpreted it as "Wanderful" !

:O

Beag - no friend who was my last staish, and now lives an hour or so east of me here was on exchange and apparently the Americans were pretty anal about the length of grass on the lawn in case of fires. Maybe it should go to the "Weber" thread

He should have adopted the same tactic as some chaps on the F-4 course ahead of mine! They were sharing a house in Coningsby village and in the early summer, an anonymous complaint came through their letterbox, stating that if they didn't cut the grass on their front lawn, the Stn Cdr would be informed...

Who was B*****d B**l...:uhoh:

Being U/T F-4 mates, they thought up a suitable response. Thus VERY early one morning an ancient ATCO mower, which they'd borrowed from one of the staff navs, spluttered into life emitting clouds of oily smoke. The thing's silencer had obviously known better days as it made a most satisfying racket as every last square inch of the lawn was given a very careful and thorough trim.

Silence then settled.

Until they started on the back lawn half an hour later....:E

Oddly enough, they never received another complaint!

When in Rome....

Brilliant!

Did you lead a sheltered life wanderwho?

S-D

First, I was forced to serve with a RAAF pilot on (x) sqn,...well 5 if you must know ,the less said about that individual the better.

Beags, I think we went one better. After weeks of complaints about our grass, and threats from a civilian to report us, we returned from the Gulf. I cut our grass with the loudest thing I could find, then sprayed their grass with Round-Up.

No more complaints.

if you are away from homeplate, shouldn't you be more worried about someone else 'moving your lawn' than the length of your grass? :E
Re exchanges, always admired those who flew with foreign types (people and jets) and especially seeing as they seemed to mostly rise to the top while there. Maybe this bloke wasn't making enough of a splash so thought this might raise his profile? (certainly did that...:suspect:)

NSandy Parts, that apparently was the reason no helpful neighbour would cut the wifey' s growth at Tidworth in case hubby thought someone was making hay.