Those of you who have read Fate is the Hunter by Ernest K. Gann will remember the chapter on a pilot who was engaged as a pilot on a new commercial airline in the immediate post war years without being asked to show his licence. Only after a display of spectacular ineptitude lead to an immediate flight check was it discovered that not only did he not have an ATPL (or equivalent) but did not even have an instrument rating. Makes you wonder how many are still flying similarly unqualified.

VRT officers are actually allowed to get married in uniform (and wear a sword!) though like you I'd question the motives of someone actually doing so.

Must've changed the rules since I was 'demobbed' in '98; in my day there was a rule that VRT Officers were not to carry a sword under any circumstances.

Weddings were a stated exception last time I looked (allegedly because no actual drill required so you can't make a tit of yourself)

Apart from weighing 18 stone, and with the uniform bulging in all directions at once.

You know the photo ;)

One of my all time favourites is 'that photo' :ok:
http://i64.tinypic.com/29dtpg8.jpg

Anyway, any news what happened in Court this week?

What happened was he pleaded not guilty to the alleged thefts. Due to the seriousness of the charges and the value of the items recovered from his lockup, it has been passed to Chelmsford Crown Court for trial. The PTPH is in early May and a full trial date will be set then. Obviously he might well change his plea, but at the moment he is looking at taking the long road!

It's good though as he certainly now has some interesting explaining to do

FB

Cheers FB :ok:

In 1971 I carried a sword as O i/c GoH at a Beds/Cambs/Hunts Wing annual parade at Henlow. Mind you, until a year or so previously, as a regular, I had commanded the GoH at RAF Watton

I carried a sword too, albeit as a Regular. Once commanding the Guard of Honour for AOC's, and once for my wedding. I wore no medals on either occasion ;)

PTPH occurred a couple of weeks back at Chelmsford Crown Court - his trial begins in October, will certainly be interesting to hear what he has to say!

FB

..but you deserved one after the latter...

My word! that Walt really is a sack of sh@t!

He might look a right mess in uniform, but he isn't a 'Walt' and has probably done more for the benefit of the Air Cadets than PTFN and the screwed-up gliding 'pause' has.....:mad:

But he's not wearing a CFM medal ribbon.
I would have got a 'clasp' to mine if my WingCo hadn't sacked me at the age of 51 just because he was jealous of me flying with the Air Cadet microlight operation which he himself had used to get his PPL(M)!

I stand corrected - but what a bloody mess!

IIRC, Gann later mentioned that this pilot had crashed, killing himself, his crew and passengers. Gann felt remorse for not 'outing' him.

...which is why flying an aircraft without a licence is a serious criminal offence but pretending to have been in the military when you haven't is (usually) just evidence of sad loserdom.

Is the "Walt" thread title really accurate? It seems his RAF GS and BBMF connections were about the only bits on his cv which were more or less true, and rather than being a Walt, he used his genuine RAF connections, ID card, flying clothing and station access to hoodwink aircraft owners to gain the use of their aircraft.

Beagle,
Thanks for the comment, much appreciated by we 'part time' officers and gentlemen.

....and it isn't me in the picture either.:hmm:

I thought they dropped that tie a few decades back when so many proved it wasn't necessarily so . . .

As in..."It took an Act of Parliament to make you an officer, but it would take an Act of God to make you a gentleman"...the old ones are the best.

Grob Acro
 

Grob Acro ( Viking) with 644 VGS, much more to this story than you'd ever realise.

I've seen Donald Trump wearing a military jacket and he managed to totally avoid military service. (Vietnam being on at the time he was able to buy a medical waiver)
Does that make him a Walt? (As well as a dick)

Isn't he ex officio C in C of US Military Forces?

(God help them!)

Mr Trump in his younger days

http://skyvalleychronicle.com/999/ne...1953838860.jpg

If you look carefully you can see the life-threatening bone spurs that caused him to get his 5th medical deferment and sadly avoid selfless devotion to his country fighting in Vietnam.

His trousers look a tad short, too. That says a lot about the man.

Just heard he changed plea to Guilty and so he appeared last week.
Another suspended sentence...i.e. Let off.
I suspect his previous suspended sentence for flying without a licence had expired.

Well, it's on the RAF website, so it must be true.


https://www.raf.mod.uk/bbmf/news/ind...63F5AE28923A22

The Comet (Letchworth).

Letchworth fake pilot avoids jail again after admitting aircraft part thefts.

Wesley Tierney, of Lindon Green, received a suspended jail sentence in March after he admitted repeated unlicensed flying and forgery over a period of four years.

The self-styled “can-do, cocksure” 26-year-old was then found to have stolen and hidden around £10,000 worth of aviation items from North Weald Airfield in Epping Forest.

Tierney appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court on Thursday charged with three counts of theft after the stolen goods were found in a storage room he was renting.

He changed his pleas from not guilty to guilty, upon which Recorder Sandeep Kainth – who also sentenced Tierney in March – imposed a fresh 16-month prison sentence, suspended for a year.

A former employee at North Weald Airfield – who asked to remain anonymous – told the Comet: “I’m shocked that he has got away with not going to prison.

“Considering he already has a suspended sentence, I can’t quite understand how he gets away with having another.

“He’s living the charmed life. As soon as cracks started to appear in his persona it got worse and worse.

“He fooled everybody into thinking that he’s a respectable young lad.”

The crimes happened between March 2015 and May 2016, with the stolen items including historic aircraft parts and propeller blades.

This conviction comes after Tierney received an eight-month prison sentence, suspended for 14 months, in March – after admitting three counts of acting as flight crew of an aircraft without holding an appropriate licence and two counts of forgery with attempt to deceive, committed between 2012 and 2016.

He flew planes from the Old Warden Aerodrome in Bedfordshire and two RAF bases – RAF Wittering and RAF Kirton – for four years without a licence or training.

The court heard that Tierney had piloted a number of aircraft types over this period, and among other things taken his former partner and their four and five-year-old children into the air – along with other people “he wished to impress”.

He had no liability insurance cover – and Recorder Kainth told him on that occasion that if there had been a crash “there was a substantial risk of harm which cannot be quantified”.

Tierney told the judge at that hearing that he had “let lies escalate” and “let the situation get out of control”.

He said: “I was trying to fit in with others. I was trying to be able to fit into conversations.

“The only relief I have was the relief of finally being caught and having my cycle of lies broken. It was a relief not to have to pretend in the bar or the mess anymore.

“I was a can-do, cocksure individual – that was the person I was. My guidance in my teens was a little misguided.”

It was also said at that hearing that Tierney now worked in a London museum, taking home £1,900 a month.

In addition to his new suspended sentence, Tierney must observe an 8pm-to-5am curfew for six months.

Crikey, I was sure he would be sent down for this with his previous suspended sentence still extant.

He didn't offend (that we know of) after the first suspended sentence was imposed.

You can't lock him up for doing it again, unless he did it again.

What will get him jailed, is if he's found to have committed an offence, any offence, while service the suspended sentences.

8 months plus 16 months = 24 months prison, which is the limit for suspending a sentence.
He didn't commit the other offense while on suspension.

Quote
You can't lock him up for doing it again, unless he did it again.

What will get him jailed, is if he's found to have committed an offence, any offence, while service the suspended sentences.[/QUOTE]

He can be jailed if the offence which preceded the suspended sentence crossed the cutody threshold and the Court decided it was serious enough not to suspend it.
Also committing any offence during the currency of a suspended sentence theoretically carries the risk of activation of the 'bender' as it's called, the sentence is rarely activated if the new offence is not itself imprisonable eg minor motoring, D and D etc

Hope that's all he's taking home from the museum each month.

Could always send stuff to himself....can't be many with the same name working as a curator in London.;)

Cannot understand why this point of fundamental origin was not sent to prison the first time - quite happy for him to be a danger to himself, but clearly a significant threat to others. Get him off the street, I say

Why don't we copy the US "Stolen Valor" Act ? and should we not reluctantly admire the Walt of All Time, the "Captain of Köpenick" ?

Anybody suggest a more worthy candidate for the title ?

I'm hazarding a guess this chap's a Walt... https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...of-free-speech

Didn't stop Clintom wearing one either and he avoided Vietnam by being a Rhodes scholar at Oxford.