Another one.
 

When at Cottesmore on 115 Sqn, Argosy (70-72) looking at my logbook I see I did three trips up north doing race track orbits for a long time as a departure from our normal flight checking role. I think we had an idea what it was all about but as a Nav my job was just doing the normal routine. The AEOs down the back knew what was going off on a "need to know" basis. We were in 1 Group so an available resource for the job I expect. A bit different for us but I preferred flight checking jobs to Berlin, the Med, or Changi.

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Yup,"Tandem Dialling", Basically you dialled in to a local exchange IIRC, then out of that into the next and so on until you reached your destination exchange.
There was also another student wheeze , where , so I am told , by using a three figure prefix (175?) you were treated as a BT Service Call and not charged.....

That's jogged a memory.

You could also call up by tapping the cradle the appropriate number of times. We were warned not to be on the line too long, as it flagged up.

So those running the show would have independent evidence / confirmation that a particular airfield had been taken out - 'nothing heard'..?

My Father put on a lock to the house phone dial face, Tapping the cradle at the right rate for each number, including the pauses , worked a treat. I eventually got bored of the game and phoned him up at his work office.

One final 'phone story I was told . A Scampton Vulcan crew visited the war room in Cheyenne Mountain in the 60's and were shown the American system where the duty officer could be phoned on any Nuclear base and had to reply within three rings. They were invited to select a base in the USA and this was duly demonstrated. They were assured that this system also extended to appropriate RAF Bases.
At their request this was duly initiated as a demonstration for their home station.
After a couple of rings a female voice announced:

" All lines to Lincoln are currently engaged . Please call later "

And of course the puerile [at the time I thought it funny] Met Office naughty jape of swapping the handsets of any pair of neighbouring phones, which pairs often sat on the forecaster's and also the observer's benches. We used to do it as we went off duty.
Complete disregard of the customers, and I apologise.

You were a right little tinker weren’t you LB?

Very restrained under the circumstances.
Winker perhaps?

The system was Automatic Airborne Radio Relay (AARR), commonly known as "Autocat" All the tankers I flew (Victor and VC10) had it fitted and it was a secondary role for the fleet. I only did one of those sorties on a Victor during a JMC exercise. Bloody boring!

IIRC one of the major problems was that the automatic system meant tying the radios together so they couldn't be used by the crew. The aircraft only had two VHF/UHF sets to that meant they couldn't talk to ATC or ADGE, and for radio relay they orbited above FL245.

Which meant that the usual means of operation was voice relay by the crew so they could share the comms. Tried it a couple of times attempting to use HF for control, but it proved far to slow and patchy.

Depends on the aircraft. The Victor had two VHFs, 2 UHFs and one HF. The problem was VHF1s and UHF1s shared the same controller as did the number 2 radios. This was limiting if not linking HF, but you could be contacted through one of the boxes being used and this meant listening to everyone else's chat. The VC10 had separate controllers for all the radios and 2 HFs, so it wasn't an issue.

Now that's odd PONTIFEX, because I was talking about this with my old plotter, who was obviously a contemporary of ours, and he has no recollection of this either. I am now beginning to think that at some stage I was abducted by aliens and had the whole thing implanted in my brain as a false memory. Unless someone else who was at Marham around the same time can put my mind to rest!

Hey TTN, being on 214 at the same time as you and Pontifex I remember the Vault and ACP study well. Wasn't it a monthly or quarterly BTR requirement? However, I also seem to remember (not so well), that it was only rear crew who did the study period. Can't remember why it was only rear crew but possibly because the pilots did flight sims without the rear crew. I certainly have no recollection of keeping the front end in the dark (as they did to us)!

Yes we did do the ACP study periods in the Vault while I was on 214, but do not think we did them when I was an instructor on the OCU.
I can not remember if the Drivers Airframe were there or not. It was 50 odd years ago.

I agree with TTN we used to go to the vault and the role involved swapping the UA60 boxes in the aircraft to allow relay between radios.

Thanks chaps, now I know I wasn't imagining it, and wont be having alien abduction nightmares. Nice to hear from ex 214 types. Re the vault, I remember hearing one day that somebody had overheard a corporal in the ops block telling his mate that he had just seen a bunch of officers coming out of a cupboard. The mind boggles as to what he imagined they were doing in said cupboard!

Was "Exercise Billion" anything to do with it?

Things didn’t change in the digital era.

Fun could be had in the Ops room at RAF Stanley during the night by programming each phone to forward any calls to the next desk after 2-3 rings. Great amusement was had watching a newbie chase a call around the room in circles.