There are always ouliers, Sir!

Possibly as there was a lack of volunteers. Reds is a constrained tour with the positives and the big negatives of block leave and restrictions when you can take leave, plus a lot of working weekends.

No problems. I know Mr W from his Business now. He has helped me out with projects. As for the book, if you have seen the google preview, you would have seen some words penned off an old ACER computer.

Positives I suppose would be no detachments such as Afghanistan when the war was on and a preplanned year where you would know exactly what you would be doing.

Never appealed to most. Better drinking culture on a Sqn without the publicity? Never was on my agenda, shame as I would have loved it.

I will simply say that, back in the Cold War, if you did not pop into the sgts mess bar at lunchtime for a swift half or a small wobbly, your annual assessment (AKA ‘Appraisals’ in todays yoof speak) would probably say “Sgt …….. does not support the mess…” and his numbers would be rounded down……..allegedly.

All I would say on that was, how times have changed. I know of no one who drinks at lunchtime, and if there would be anyone who does and returns to work, they’d be sent home, at best.

Nutty, you’d be surprised how appealing OO deployments were/are. For all the talk of how things used to be, this generation or the half generation ago are or were involved in proper kinetic operations. We are and have been involved in combat. Oh for the good old days of the Cold War and getting pissed on Wobbly.

The irony is that, for all the talk of this generation being woke, we are, and have, and are still on Ops. Not training for Ops.
The Reds offers a chance for front line FJ pilots to have a rest and do something different. For all that I take the piss out of them for being (currently) not on the front line, they all have and deserve a respite tour on RAFAT and do a fantastic job.

Perhaps I am wrong but before I put both feet in my mouth to whom would you be referring too?

I’ll give you a clue, he was a not a nice person, Bader.


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Or having a block party and drinking on the night off during an exercise, then bimbling back into work in the early hours and later being interviewed by the SIB because someone burnt the police block down next to ours.. who knew, we missed all the fun.. SIB could not believe we worked late, drank to the early hours, then went back to work lol.

Yes have heard that (but a lot of great leaders are not considered nice people) but Colin "Hoppy" Hodgkinson also served. Lost both legs early 1939. Worked his way back in, in 1942. Discharged 1946 Joined Royal Auxiliary Air Force 1949 to early 50's flying Vampires if memory serves.

Sorry, that wasn't the case at the time. The Reds have always been an attractive tour for many engineers and apprenti were just sent to wherever, irrespective of their wishes although it would be fair to say some did get them fulfilled .

As for the AMM's, they would only be there for, in theory, 12-18months, before doing the Tech's course. However, most got their first choice for one very good and specific reason. With the drawdown in fleets / locations, it benefitted both the RAF and the individual to be based at, and working on, a location and type that appealed to them. A certain "well known rotary station " did, in fact, demonstrate how effective this policy was with regard to how they treated AMM's as they wanted, and got, them back after they became Techs.

The (in)famous lunch time drinking ?....long gone, now replaced with?..... visits to the gym !

It will be interesting to see how these revelations develop and what, if any, effect they have on the public given most simply want to watch, as certain MSM thoughtfully explain to their readers, their, ahem, "aerial stunts " .

Internally is probably an entirely different matter and, whilst these revelations have reached the public domain, many of the issues bear a horrible and uncanny similarity to events at Lossie where it took, as I understand it, an SAC to have the moral courage to stand up in public and address a VSO as to the then flight safety culture...which lead to a significant investigation and some individuals " no longer employed " .

I received a negative comment in my ACR - I commuted on a motorcycle and was written up for not attending happy hour in the Mess.....strangely, a colleague who also commuted by motorcycle and failed a breathalyser one Friday evening, was also written up negatively.

Those controlling the news channels should think how things might be if someone like Putin was in charge in U.K.

I see that the Daily Mail is reporting that the Reds could be canned.
Seems like a good move to me, they could be replaced by The Rainbows.

Jesus christ.... Why are you people always doing this?

Indeed, having done the cold war and hot war stuff (both my op tours were somewhere that drinking was forbidden or opportunity was a two can rule for one night in the entire 4 months) I agree with your comments entirely.

On the other side of the coin, you have to have that arrogance and mentality to be a leader and a fighter in the first place, so unfortunately it is hard to have one without the other.
Personal experience says otherwise - historically see Gibson and Cheshire.

I was once on an exercise where we were allowed 2 cans of beer per day, we all saved them up and had an excellent party... They didn't see the funny side of that little episode.