C17 at Lake Wivenhoe
 

Thanks for the flypast at Lake Wivenhoe on Monday.
You never know who may be in that little sailing boat with red sails.

During my time at Chivenor as a TWU student, minor screw ups were dealt with by the award of a number of 'Pigs' and an associated small fine which went into a pot. The misdeed would be recorded on the Pigs Board grid; when all the spaces were full, the pot would be turned into a squadron barrel....

One day, on his way back from an Air-to-Air firing trip, the range controllers at Portreath asked one of our number for a fly-by. So he agreed, but flew over at 9000ft! So the range controller rang the Sqn Ops desk and asked "Where the heck was that Hawk - we never saw him?".

Pigs were soon awarded - 5 for 'accepting a request for an unauthorised fly-by' - and a further 5 for 'screwing up the 'above'.

It was very tempting to make mock attacks on GWR trains on the southern edge of our local training area when I was a QFI at a UAS - but I knew that had I done so, I would no doubt have bounced a train full of humourless Air Vice Marshals. But it was sooo tempting!

Point made - 63 Sqn had a sound sense of humour back then!

705 Naval Air Squadron at Culdrose had a fines book too. The Gazelle had two airframe elements that attracted pecuniary input from students. There were two antennas on the chin between the skids that were occasionally dinged, as was the bottom of the fenestron (tail rotor). The fines in the mid-70's were in the order of 50p or so.

But, splashed across the front cover was the image of a Gazelle in a gazillion pieces. An auto-rotation gone horribly wrong, no injuries except wounded pride. Splashed across the front of the fines book was the caption 'The fine for this is 220,000 pounds'.

I can't recall the name of the beefer that ran the book, but he was at least 6' 3" and had a wonderful sense of humour and wonderful writing as he recorded your offence with style.