I managed to get a ride in a Hunter at Thumrayt, 40 odd years ago. Bugger nearly managed to make me use the sick bag but not quite, beating up the wadis and up and over the escarpments. It'd taken umpteen gallons of Amstel down his throat the previous evening though to give the flight to me! Brilliant time there, brilliant people, brilliant place.
PS, I didn't wear blue shorts to work.....

court-martialled for transporting a WAAF to a dance at another RAF station in his single-seat Hurricane, and was severely admonished.

so, just out of interest, you understand, who sat on who's lap?

Would the pole not get in the way?

Circa 1978,aged about 15,I walked through the gates at Southend airport with my pedal bike to see the BBMF Lanc up close as it taxied in( you could do that in those days). The pilot came out and I, never scared of being forward, asked if there was any chance of a ride? He smiled but said alas no. Fast forward to 1981, at Conningsby UAS summer camp and our adj Mick Mills (X 49 Squadron Lanc rear gunner) blagged a ride in the BBMF Lanc in his former seat. When he saw the Hurricane and Spitfire format up, he recalled that he thought they were a couple of Messerschmitts! He was turning the rear turret manual wheel like mad to train the guns on them.Many years later I spoke to the pilot that day, Jacko Jackson and he remembered the flight. 'That bugger',he said,'kept turning the bloody turret and ruining the trim of the aircraft!' Priceless....

I was fortunate enough to listen to 'Bea' tell the story about that Hurricane sortie. I think that it was between Pembrey and Castle Martin (although one of the airfields may have been Brawdy). The reason was to go to a party and he did sit on the WAAF's lap. The WAAF later became his wife! I cannot do the story justice as he was a great story teller of tales such as this.

Not strictly on topic - as I've never been in uniform, but a UH-1H ride with the RNZAF sometime in the late eighties comes to mind.
At a training camp as a civilian in the South Island with teams destined for Antarctica that summer.
Have a vivid memory of being strapped into one of the sideways facing fold-down seats with a full load of pax - rear door all the way back as we were hover-taxying, and thinking how extraordinarily quiet it was inside even with the doors open - compared to the Huey drum beat that you always heard from the ground.
Talking to the young pilot afterwards, and he told me that 50 foot rotor had so much inertia that he could auto-rotate, touch down, then pull collective and rotate the aircraft through 180 degrees to touch down again with engine still at idle.
Amazing.

In a similar vein what about VSO's who have flown jets without proper type training/auths.

A couple of my mountaineering friends got a lift in an RAF Sea King, but it wasn't exactly a 'joy ride'!

Scroll back to Cranfield in the early '80s.

A young commercial instructor who was 100% civvy blagged Sandy Topin (not an easy thing to do) that he had RAF Vampire time despite obviously being at least a decade too young and flew several displays at Cranfield and elsewhere. He was renowned for finishing a loop over terrain lower than the airfield and disappearing from sight still going down which created quite an impression I'm told. I'm pretty certain he'd never flown a jet before, just boned up on the pilot's notes and did it.

Sadly, predictably, such a wayward spirit as this did not make old bones and is doubtless right now blowing up a hoolie on his Sax on that great airfield in the sky. Much loved by all that knew him.

WIWO Nimrods two brothers-in-law visited, one on leave from Binbrook and one from Culdrose. I gave them leave cancellation forms and a 9 hour hop in a Nimrod. Back home the RAF one was duly returned one day's leave. The PO tore up the sailor's one.

One of the funniest stories that I can remember; we are in Bahrain after the withdrawal from Aden at the end of 1967. I am a training captain on Argosys. We now have two Hunter squadrons in Bahrain; 8 and 208 (Naval Eight).

One of the Hunter wheels asked me in the bar one day if he could come and fly something bigger, so I arranged that he could come flying with me on a training flight on a Saturday afternoon. He did very well; I set the power and told him what speed to fly and all was well.

Later, he came "up-country" with me round some strips in Oman and (what is now) the UAE.

In return, he offered me a trip in the Hunter T.7.

First of all, I was a very busy individual and, to be honest, I was not all that bothered about getting in a Hunter. Apart from anything, there was a long list of deserving candidates already waiting for a Hunter ride.

So. one Saturday lunchtime in the bar at Muharraq he had another go at me to take up his offer. It so happened that one of my good mates had just been posted back to UK (to Belfasts) and he had always wanted to get in a Hunter.
So I suggested that he take my mate instead of me - that way, honour would be satisfied.

And so it was that my mate got airborne in a T.7 first thing on the Monday morning. It is winter and the weather is not great but they are going to "punch up" through the clouds and do some "aeros".

On the way up, my mate asked if it was normal to have smoke coming from behind the instrument panel?

So, we have a Pan Call and a request for a radar recovery. Then we find that the compasses are not working so we update to a Mayday. Finally by using "Left a bit" "Right a bit" they break cloud only to discover that the gear won't come down! After a lot of "G" pulling below a low cloud base, the wheels finally come down and they land safely and they are duly towed off the runway with a tug.

They are now in the Hunter crewroom and my mate is thanking God that he is back on the ground in one piece when my Hunter friend walks in.

"I have just spoken to the Chiefy and he tells me that he can have 562 ready in half an hour".

My mate left instantly.

By the way, my Hunter friend went on to lead the Sparrows.

As for A VSO attempting to fly an a/c when not qualified to do so I seem to recall the tale of a certain AOC and a VC10. Perhaps Beags can shed more light on the matter.

No, I cannot - that's news to me!

When I was flying the VC10, there was a specific brief for VSOs who were to fly in the aircraft and the captain had to be a current QFI. The VSO would be given a brief and a short session in the simulator.

If they wanted to fly the take-off, we practised the abort scenario in the simulator. This was to a different SOP than the normal take-off; the QFI would call "ABORT - I HAVE CONTROL!" and the VSO would take hands and feet off. As the QFI, I would close the throttles (if the Air Eng hadn't already done so), extend the speedbrakes, select reverse on whichever engines were still producing thrust and start braking and steering to a halt. It was a blur of activity, but was the safer option as it would have been all too easy for the VSO to forget a crucial part of the drill.

The only questionable aspect of flying a VSO was if he wanted to do some prodding. Fine if he'd flown big aircraft before, but if not....:hmm:

Do AOCs still do type training? It was certainly the case in 1 Gp, and I presume 3 Gp, for the AOC to do a short Vulcan Conversion Course. Usually flew to Cyprus for the better, more reliable weather. Probably avoided distractions from the office down the road though I understand there may have been other distractions there.

Mis-use of high rank
 

Ref #73 & #74, one March day many years ago I was informed the AOC would be passenger on the weekly Dulles schedule that I was shortly due to operate; however, on phoning his PA to enquire if he would like to take the jump seat, I was somewhat peremptorily informed that he would be flying the VC10 himself.

Of course, there could be no question of this – how could any sane person expect to fly a passenger-carrying aircraft, of a type on which he was totally unqualified, into a busy international airport in the depths of winter? Not only that, the idea was totally contrary to all rules and regulations (which we were both sworn to uphold) and simply could not be allowed to happen - but how to sink it, preferably without trace? My initial idea of waiting to see what happened on the day was soon abandoned; visions of violent confrontation on the flight deck, with flight plan already filed and passengers boarded, were unpleasant to contemplate and so I took the easier option of passing my objections up the chain of command.

The result was interesting, to say the least. My CO backed me 100%+, although I got the impression that the higher up my refusal went, the more wobbly the support although nothing more was heard from Group HQ .

Came the day, the great man boarded along with the rest and the flight over the Pond proceeded without incident; I even spoke with him while visiting the passengers, I don't recall what was said other than any conversation was short and rather terse; I hoped that was the end of the matter, but nature decided otherwise.

We were due to stop briefly at Ottawa, but the forecast was dire and did not improve as we got closer; furthermore the ILS was unavailable, though whether due to being u/s or on the wrong runway I can't remember, but it left us with only PAR as an alternative – an aid that, in my opinion, was always inferior to a well set-up ILS. Inevitably, nothing was visible at decision height so it was off to Trenton, our diversion airfield about 200 miles to the SW, from which we got away again asap on the short hop down to Dulles.

When our crew finally got to the terminal I was rather dismayed to find the passengers still milling about, our AOC among them. Unfortunately he saw us and, beckoning me into an empty office, proceeded to conduct a rather one-sided discussion on my shortcomings as an officer relating to a superior. Nothing was said on the topic of who flew what & when, no just that I was ill-mannered and disrespectful in not personally appraising him of the fact that we had to divert - despite that (obviously) the passengers had all been informed by PA. How I was expected to abandon my responsibilities as aircraft captain in order to speak to him was not explained, while that he said nothing on the subject which started it all, would perhaps indicate he knew he was on rather thin ice – or had he been made aware of an accident involving a VSO in a very similar situation about thirty years previous? - which, being highly relevant, please read on:-


Sometime during the late 1940s a York inbound to Nairobi was carrying a number of pax among whom was the AOC of the group to which the aircraft belonged. At a later stage of flight the VSO appeared on the flight deck (if one could so describe the York's crew space) demanding the captain relinquish his seat, saying he would now take the aircraft in to land; and, although even then there were strict rules & regs concerning qualifications and suchlike, the captain acceded. However during the final approach it was evident the York was lined up to land at Nairobi West rather than its proper destination of Eastleigh, but when the captain pointed this out he was told to shut up and the approach continued – with inevitable results. After over-running the too short runway the aircraft was damaged beyond repair, though miraculously there were only very few minor injuries. Other than being posted shortly afterwards, I don't think the VSO responsible for this display of arrogant stupidity was ever sanctioned.



Re #39, the carriage of dependants on an aircraft where the head of family was a member of crew was (in my time anyway) streng verboten and strictly enforced - in the shiny fleet at any rate, although I never actually saw any written rules on the subject. Did different rules apply at Lyneham in the old days, indeed do any still apply today at Brize?


harrym

harrym, the rules ref the carriage of ones own dependents were laid down in GASOs and were exactly the same for the Hercules. Even on families flights this rule was enforced. It was amended later on I think. The VC 10 incident to which I referred must have taken place around the early 1970s. With the usual caveats of hearsay , memory etc I will tell what little I know. It was at Bahrain (was it still RAF Muharraq ?) that the AOC told the a/c captain that he intended to operate the leg home including the take off and landing. The captain demurred as the AOC was not qualified on type and not only would it be dangerous but also illegal under the 38 Group regulations. When the AOC forced the issue the a/c captain said in that case he would get off the a/c and be followed by the rest of the crew as they had no wish to perish to satisfy someone's ego trip. The AOC must have backed down otherwise the VC 10 might still be there now ! There are similarities here with harrym's story so they may be one and the same. However given some of the VSO that we had it could well be a separate incident.

On family and crew, that was effectively true at 6FTS where the crew were on the Jet Stream whereas we were all Dominie crew. However we were allowed to fly as cabin escort.

Just to lighten the tone, the P.R. side of the R.A.F. have been instrumental in awarding some unexpected moments of gratification for the crew. On a Falcons drop to Weston Super Mare we were asked to take the presenters of Blue Peter along. "As long as they leave the animals behind" we said. After the team jumped and in the descent with the freight bay full of orange smoke, the presenters were invited to the flight deck to observe the fly past. One stood either side of the Engineer's chair with one standing behind him. At precisely one minute and fifteen seconds after the "Last man down" call we arrived at the impact point and the captain rolled left then applied a 2G pull which caused the presenter in front of the Nav station, known as "Princess Tippytoes" to lose her hand hold above the Copilot's head and she was delivered in a tousled state of embarrassed confusion into my lap. I comforted her," there, there and possibly there" and advised her to stay put until we offloaded the G. For some reason that memory has stayed with me all these years.

Without wishingto add too much thread drift , in the early 70's the Blue Peter team visited the Fleet Air Arm Museum, which at the time had the Camel from the I.W.M in custody.
John Noakes was puzzled as to how ,in reality, one clambered into a Camel in WW1 . Haraka Senior explained to him one technique being to straddle the rear fuselage and hand walk up the decking before swinging your legs forward one at a time and easing down in to the cockpit. Noakes though this a splendid item for the show and asked if he could be filmed doing it.
This was duly instigated and he got as far as just starting to swing his legs in when he promptly ripped the backside out of his trousers
(on some attachment left over from when the IWM hung the beast from the roof in South Lambeth apparently).

I can't remember her name, but a very popular Stn Cdr's secretary at Wattisham was treated to a trip in a Lightning T4 many moons ago.