Happy days, when we all had more hair and less waistline. And bigger bladders!!

Best time Shawbury to Valley in a Gazelle was 1.00 - and that was in grovelly weather to pick up a pax. Very low cloud base/vis, so poor comms at FL 2 foot 6. Crossing the Menai Straight, called Valley:

"Passing Point Alpha" (I think their nickname for the Menai Bridge).

"Say again C/s, broken, barely readable"

"Crossing the Straights inbound"

"Say again...."

"Just passing Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.. .."

"Roger, call a/f in sight to Tower!"

Smartass!!

Of the Shackleton, we had a USAF chap along for a trip. When required we directed him to the facilities down aft.

Shortly afterwards came the appeal from one of the crew, descend below 10 thousand Skipper, everyone off oxygen.

Our pax had relieved himself down the oxygen tube.

Was on a low level sortie out of a RAF Station in NE England in a Merlin when it was still in RAF service. We took some pax with us and one of them was a young lady from ATC. After approx 2 hours we started heading back on an IF recovery she gets my attention explaining she needed to go rather rapidly as she had been holding it for a while. Still 20 mins out she was advised to hold it a bit longer which she replied she was already at max overload capacity. Cue getting the pax to all shuffle up front ‘look at all the knobs in the cockpit and don’t turn round’. Gave her a sick bag and suggested she crack on, tap me in the shoulder when she was done.
Once all seated again she spent the remainder of the flight clutching her ‘bag’ after she offered it to me to sort and I politely declined!

Fire Axe

At Brize out on the pans you just went, I soon found I could sign my name with it as I emptied my bladder and was soon decorating all of the aprons, it was easily readable especially from the steps and was erm commented on several times, my boss was not amused and made me walk out to one pan with a bucket of water to remove the evidence... but fear not old habits die hard as they say...

Brilliant. Pray tell us how to do it: script, italic, capitals, lower case ..........
A great leisure hobby for the self-isolating.

Reminds me of the tale of an irate father, who discovered his daughter's boyfriend's name "written" in a similar fashion in the snow by the front door. He really gave off to the daughter the next morning:

"Oh come on Dad, it's only a joke, did you never do it? What's the big objection?"

"It's in your handwriting!"

If you’re really full to capacity you can show off by underlining everything.

I once heard that joke told at a dining in - by the Padre!

FREEHAND...... well one, anyway..

If its cold enough for snow I might not be able to find the pen.

I do morse 😶

That will be the prostate

We took a couple of American airman on a flight in a Shackleton during a detachment to Keflavic in Iceland. Needing a pee, one of them was pointed to the Elsan down past the galley. A few minutes later we noticed that one of the passengers in the galley looked a bit sheepish while the other was convulsed in laughter: the quiet one he arrived in the crew area a little flustered:

"Gee Sir. I think I've made a mistake".

Instead of using the Elsan, he had relieved himself into the oxygen tube next to it. A quick word off intercom with the flight eng followed: he gleefully made the call on intercom:

"Don't fly above 8 thousand skipper. One of the Yanks has p*ssed into the oxygen system."

Two faces turned backwards from the pilots' seats as they tried to comprehend the situation. The flight back to Kef was made more interesting by the debate about how far back into the system the fluid could travel, and what to do if there was an emergency requiring oxygen. Back at Kef it was found that it didn't get past the elsan's economiser, so all was all right, although a strictly "not above 8" was followed on the transit back to Lossie.

I managed to draw a sinusoidal curve on Gibraltar High Street for about 400 yards from Casement Square to the pub which had an anvil in it (Can't remember it's name).

We took a WRAF ATCO on a Vulcan trip once. The rules didn't allow her to fly on a low level bombing trip, so it was a 5+ hour MRR boat-spotting bore-ex. Of course the inevitable question arose and she was briefed on the limitation of the crew relief facilities. The ever-helpful (?) ground crew suggested a large funnel, pee-tube and speed tape arrangement in the vis bomb aimer's area, but she simply said "Aren't these immersion suits supposed to be waterproof?".

We never did find out....

I was on BFTS Cranwell on the JP5a when we took a few aircraft up to Lossiemouth for low level training in the mountains. There was low cloud on arrival and forecast to stay like that for two days. A Shackleton squadron ( I can't remember the actual squadron number) was based there and on the second day of our detachment with no let up in the weather due, we were in the mess bar having a few beers with the Shackleton crews.
Our Squadron Commander came in and made an announcement that there were two seats going on a Shack trip in the morning. Briefing 07:30 for an 8-hour radar training flight. Not surprisingly there were no volunteers and we all were making ourselves as small as possible, but in true tradition, two were 'volunteered'. I was one.
On arriving at the briefing with a thumping hangover we were reunited with one of the Shack crews that we had been drinking with the night before - equally hungover. After squeezing ourselves in we were shown where to sit and where the pee tube was. After take off we headed out over the North Sea and the crew were getting stuck into their radar tubes when after about 2 hours a voice came over the intercom 'skip, no 3 radar tube U/S' . Reply 'OK no.3, that's it then, we will have to abort mission'
Our hopes suddenly rose, were are going back! The next intercom voice from the Skipper 'We are still overweight so will have to spend an hour dumping fuel'
The boys, now with nothing to do, started getting bored and decided to have a farting contest. After the beers the night before it was horrendous. Seasoned Shack crews against a couple of boys out of initial training!
I have never been so pleased to get of an aircraft since!