It's still fun!
 

Moments to remember. Overshooting at Akrotiri, plugging in the burners and going up near vertically, checking the new cable at Waddo, landing with 2500 lbs, taking off again, the cable kicking you into air after 1300ft and climbing straight up. Fantastic!

Getting airborne
 

After 1300 feet, with about 2000lbs of fuel, the F4 got kicked airborne by the bounce over the approach-end cable. Whoopee!
Gottit?

That's a new one on me, mebbe there were too many left over bernoulies.

Sorry to disappoint GT, flew them from 1980-1988, very familiar with all sorts of cables on all sorts of runways.

Some things don't matter very much, most things don't matter at all.

I recall Cdr F at Brawdy taking the approach end cable in a Hunter, and was re-appointed by the following day

I recall Cdr F at Brawdy taking the approach end cable in a Hunter

I take it that this was in a T8 or GA11 which, presumably, were not cleared for approach end engagements.

Well, once or twice a day - not record-breaking, but not infrequent either. And I always get the casting vote in both when I fly and what type of sortie I do, as well as being able to generate sorties on my own behalf if I'm not doing enough flying already. Please don't tell me that this is not the case - the fact that you can't comprehend my freedom of action, or the enjoyment it gives me even after 20 years in, says more about you than me. In the rotary world, this is now (with the demise of the UK SAR Force) unusual, but I find much the same at the AEF where anyone can enjoy the same (sure, the range of profiles is somewhat more limited - just flinging the aircraft around the sky again and again...).

In the unlikely event that anyone is still reading this thread, I would simply say that to me it is still fun, in particular since many of the bitter blinkered has-beens like Prooney (callsign Wayne?) have long since f**ked off to sulk somewhere else.