Voyager Parties
 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-jet-off.html

it’s a shame.

Learned something today....

Whoops.
Akrotiri was a great gig when we civvies did it . About min rest if i remember , but good fun .

Never forget the giant foam hands waving us off from the tower

I remember those riotous parties.

Well, I hope the crewmembers concerned are punished suitably. I'm more angry about the 'source', though. Portraying what could just as easily be termed a 'concern for safety' as 'desire for revenge' compounds the entirely avoidable reputational damage wrought by airing such dirty laundry. So now, instead of looking like an organisation dealing appropriately with its miscreants, we appear to be a spiteful, point-scoring bunch of individuals. I recognise that it's all too easy to fall into the trap of shooting the messenger, but in this case the legitimate messenger was whoever called the police. All the 'source' has done is made an already bad situation much worse. From the candid, ill-considered nature of the comments, I wonder whether they even realised they were talking to a journalist...

Disappointing you have been taken in by a report in the DM. There is a report, re members of crew being removed from an aircraft. The rest is, at the moment, just a story, unless you know differently. But it makes for a story.
Depending where people stand, this will either be those saying it is spiteful, or someone potentially saving an aircraft and more importantly lives.

Disappointing that you're unable to distinguish between uncritical belief in media stories and concern for public perception. I know nothing about the incident, which makes me no different to the average punter reading the story. Rags that the Mail and its online namesake may be, they have sizeable readerships and influence public views. Implying that there is little or no reputational damage because the backstory could just be made up is like saying that the Army suffered no reputational damage from the Mirror's made-up prisoner torture story during TELIC.

Anyway, ways of working at the heart of government mean that unnamed 'sources' carry more weight with the public than they really should.

I don’t remember those riotous parties.

Accomodation
 

What I find most shocking is that tanker crews were forced to sleep on base. Times must really be tight.

BV

Back in the 60's and 70's visiting crews used to stay in the "Curious Palace". Walking distance from Hero's Square.

Should have gone to Chris's restaurant off base, like the good old days of the mighty VC10

Really? Never once stayed off base during my many visits to Akrotiri on Victor tankers in the 70s. Our bitch was we always got the worst accommodation, whilst the pampered pets of the shiny transport fleet slept in air conditioned luxury in blocks 100 and 101. Only once did the worm turn when an unwise VC10 NCO called out "there go the tanker trash" as they slogged past on the way to their own inferior billet. Unfortunately for him the party contained a well known irascible red headed squadron leader navigator, who immediately ordered the NCO out of his room, which he promptly allocated to one of the tankers guys. The VC10 captain took offence, and took the matter to the station commander, who wisely came down firmly on the side of the tanker flight commander.

You'd need a gallon of Kokinelli to get to sleep in those unconditioned blocks in the middle of summer!

Just one more reason not to read that scurrilous rag.
ONLY three things correctly reported in there
Date
Price
Horoscope
everythin else is made up or fiction
David

When I had the virtues of flight safety drilled into me, it actually didn't matter about the rank, qualification, role or the ultimate intent of the person reporting a potential flight safety incident, all that mattered was you had the integrity and moral fortitude to try and prevent something quite terrible from happening to our brethren in the aviation community.

If you want to protect the reputation of the service, you might want to think about that before you publicly act in a way that causes others to think there might be a flight safety issue. This is nothing to do with the reporting or information source standards of a gutter rag I wouldn't wipe my arse with, and everything to do with professional standards. This incident is a long way from reaching its legal and judicial conclusion, but it's already a massive own goal, whatever the outcome.

You already said "don't attack the messenger" and yet proceed to do exactly that.

Any word on the Lightning and the Typhoon? Did they go to another petrol station, or are they still up there?

If you read my post again, carefully this time, you will note that I drew a distinction between the person who (correctly) notified the authorities and the 'source' who spilled the story to the press. There's no integrity or moral fortitude involved in the latter, just unthinking, damaging spitefulness.

Please read the DAOSR for the real story

DASORs aren't normally available for the genpub to read, so your advice is perhaps of rather limited value?

Is there actually a Mg limit for breath or blood testing aircrew laid down now then? The old no drinking within 50ft of the aircraft and moderate drinking in the 24 ft beyond that kind of rule did leave it open to interpretation and I’d guess make it harder to secure any conviction at a CM or in civilian court?