The White House RAF Coltishall
 

Go figure, the place now has a film studio with a full size replica of the Oval Office in it... I never knew.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-55469093

Not bad but the carpets and colors change with every president. So a Nixon office does not fit for Obama or Reagan etc.
In LA they have a Nixon office at the Nixon library.

And another one at the Reagan Library.
https://www.reaganfoundation.org/lib...s/oval-office/

The White House
 

I see they just changed the furniture in the Mess Ante Room. It was always five star glam at Coltishall.

BV

Aparrently they took over the old sim building Bob, as it has large rooms with attached offices. There is a link on the page :)

Nutty
 

Amazing. What a brilliant use for the old building.

I’m just remembering how I used to wander from the aircrew feeder down towards the sim on a lazy summers day. Never did I realise I was actually walking down Pennsylvania Avenue towards the White House.

Coltishall seems to be a Jack of all trades nowadays.

Bv

and Buckingham Palace is in Church Fenton!

Drove past there late summer, and there were loads of "not people from Norfolk" tabbing in the garden, from the hautbois main road. .20 years ago, I was walking around there with a SLR guarding the place . Unbelievable! It's a solar farm now..ffs....

Surely 20 years ago you would have been walking round Coltishall with an SA80? Now 30 years ago!?

FB

Which is still an SLR in function as any automatic pistol can be described as an SLP ;)


Wow, so there is..

Thank you M'Lud, however, in common parlance an SLR is the standard reference to the L1A1 derivative of the Belgian FN. If I may bore the court further, 50 years ago it would have been a self-loading pickaxe handle.:p

FB

Which was much more useful as it doubled as a stool, all be it uncomfortable. :)

I was escort on a charge, where somebody had been knocking conkers out of a tree, with an SLR back at Colt in the early 90's.

Swiping at them or shooting at them?:confused:

FB

Surely not that old Chestnut ......

What did they award him? a one-er?


Hat, coat :E

Obviously shooting, it makes a hole for the string!

With an SLR camera? :p

SLR... Walking about and hiding down at the Officers Mess boiler room on our one hour stag as the seats were set up and it was out of the way at 2 AM. NLG on the radio net "This is the voice of the Mysterons, we know you can hear us Earthman!" Followed by the Guard Commander retorting on the net "So can the RAF Police!" Colt, best camp ever.

My first weapon on stag at Lossie on Minieval was said stick.

It is the "Start of level One!" building. Those that know Colt well know that.

Colt has 600 people employed in 120 various business renting 80% of the buildings that are not HMP Bure. The old guardroom is now a Hertiage Centre opening as soon as Covid allows it to be.

I do wonder if the old boy from the NAAFI wagon ever caught up with his creditors before it shut, I remember him collaring one of our guys from Germany who had been posted away over 2 years earlier and he knew from memory who he was and what he still owed lol

Great station. Spent a few Happy Hours in the bar being baited by the Jag junta...I was an SH guy visiting mates on the SAR Flt...and before that my grandad was the Officers” Mess barman..for 29 yrs..he sometimes took me into work.

I would agree if he used an SA80, an SLR would have brought the tree down.

Recently a memorial to our local Regt has appeared in the town, showing a soldier stood at ease with an SLR. When the first automatic weapon you fired is now on a statue, one feels rather old ...... :sad:

The film set is in the former gymnasium, a place many of us stationed there had difficulty in finding for some unknown reason.

Erico retired long before the base closed.

Lots of people on here are before the time of "Start of Level One!" Of course the old Station Mortuary was a more favourable place. The Rugby Club bar.

It's alright for you, I cut my teeth on a LE #4.

Many moons ago, as a student at Valley in the heady days of Support Command, I was pinged to guard the Ops block on what was advertised as a TACEVAL, clutching a broomstick labelled "CPX RIFLE". I challenged OC Ops Wg as he arrived at the door and asked to see his ID. He was one of those unpleasant individuals who had unfortunately been born with an a**hole at both ends of his body, one clearly trying to function as a brain. As I agreed I knew who he was, he asked why I thought it was necessary to see his ID card. I told him it was in case he was an inflatable replica, which generated an instant and predictable rant from him. I still can't see a new broomstick without remembering the poisonous pillock going purple with rage.

Sorry for the thread drift, I have been enjoying learning a little about the Colt of yesteryear.

The old mortuary is being refurbished fortunately not for it's original use, there is however a covid temporary morgue in use in 3 hangar.

Cough.. cough.... semi automatic unless you had a packet of Swan Vesta's finest.. :)

Didn't some senior officer in Cyprus or the like get up close and personal with a stock?
I remember the tale that he had asked to see a guards weapon on exercise on some pretext to see if it was clean etc and then charged him for handing it over, naturally this got around and he tried it again on another exercise and as he went to grab it, he met the stock coming the other way and copped a face full. It may have been folk law but it did the rounds..

.... or a pop rivet! :E And two LMG mags back to back :)

Better than every aircraft that you flew being either a Gate Guardian, recycled cans or in a museum.:uhoh:

There were some walking corpses in that hangar during my time there. Mustha.

Sorry if you didn't see the place. Like a lot of places it was marmite. But a top flavoured marmite as a lot less people hating it than loving it. Small city 10 miles done the road with a load of pubs, the coast and the Broads (ditto), a small station that everyone knew each other and the empires you saw on the larger bases were few and far between. Certainly the Jet for the last 33 years of its existance helped as being an airframe that rarely interfered with social life due to its servicablity. More friction now between the blazer and the polo shirt societies. My first tour saw my wife, kids, house and some good projects sorted. Second stint saw more good stuff happen and off to the fens with the last Cats.

I had a SLR out at Dhahran in 91. I am getting old because I cannot remember the conversion date for the L85A1 that would have been during the mid 90s. Nor do I have the WHT card to tell me! Did do the LMG course at Bruggen in 87. Only time I fired off 3 round bursts. Fired LE#4 as an Air Cadet.

Never Volunteer
 

'You up for the first VRT conversion course onto SA80?' 'Where?' 'Regiment Flight St Athan' Thinks,.....never been to St Athan...might be interesting!
Oh the brain pain that followed. That nice Flt Sgt regiment bloke was a joy, boy did he work us hard for 5 days only letting on after that the final test had been the equivalent of the SAC trade test and they were given 2 weeks to assimilate it all. All but three of us failed.

Oh yes, the officers mess boiler room. I stand corrected, it was a SA80 rather than an SLR. The last stint I did on guard was with a lovely Waf and the warm boiler room was equipped with 2 chairs a pack of cards, small table, and as it was my last ever I provided a bottle of wine. Obviously didn't drink it as that would of been against the law?

And all the graffiti on the boiler. The Enterprise toliet joke always made me giggle.