Got to keep posting here until the thread gets the sticky status it deserves!

I have memories of a sharp F4 QWI student navigator back in circa '70 who had remembered well the rule that no kills counted in the combat phase unless they were subsequently confirmed by film. Well, on the first engagement they claimed a kill and disengaged with a little negative G that resulted in a double Hyd fail - with no control they immediately ejected. Their jet obviously recovered at least one system because it flew around for some 18 minutes before impacting the sea not far from where they were plucked out of the water by the rescue chopper. When dropped later at Coningsby, the Navigator retrieved a very wet radar film cassette from his immersion suit pocket and slapped it in my hand claiming "There's my kill".

Good one Jack

The unfortunate pilot in the splashjag incident later taught me to fly the F3 T******. What a nice chap he is, inexplicably still a Flt Lt though!

Jagsplash driver
 

Overstress,

Totally agree; he was a fine chap and a very good pilot. Flew with him once on the F4 OCU and knew the nav as well from a previous sqn at ISL.

An apocryphal story from that day was that when they returned to the mess for a much-needed sharpener or three after claiming their kill, there was a free barrel on in the bar. When enquiring as to the reason for this largess, said donor of barrel said "Oh it's on me, I've just joined 'The Caterpillar Club'". Crew riposte is not of printable sort!

Another apocryphal tale 'circa 69 when the engines were not lasting 5 minutes came from Jim McRoberts RIP who was one of several instructors grounded that day until serviceability improved.

"You know, for years I thought I was getting the *hitty end of the stick but now they've taken the stick away!"

Might be relevant to a few more aircrew soon, sadly.

Bob Prest does/did fly for Gulf Air. When in SOAF (now RAFO) he flew Jaguars, not Strikies. He ejected from a Jaguar in circumstances I will not discuss and was dragged a long way across the desert, on which he scraped large quantites of his flying kit and skin. When it re-grew it was rather pink and we put him on a diet of drinking chocolate and the occasional Guiness, to restore the proper colour. If any of you have seen John Walmsley's excellent photo history of the F4 OCU you may recall that at the bottom of each page there was an extract from the 'Line Book'. IMHO the best one related to an US Marine major who turned up for AOCs (as it was then called) in full uniform and medals; one nav was heard to say to another "Look out, here comes Magnetic North"! Happy days, apart from Bill and Doctor Death! I also have an excellent story about Al Vosloo if anyone wants it posted? Relates to the use of Service telephones to make calls home when delayed at work night flying etc.

Come on, A2QFI, let's have the story on big Al.

I think you could have been a bit unkind lumping Doctor Death with Bas*ard Bill - he showed lots of loyalty downwards even if he seldom appeared to watch the arrows in their Gnats. Rumour was that he evaluated the Gnat and wrote that it would never be a good formation aircraft! Well, to err is human.

Before it's too late
 

A number of threads on this outstanding web-site run to 30+ pages, each one full of first-rate prose and not a little humour. Some of the smaller threads have equally gripping stories as well as current situations where information or experiences are requested.

The excellent Vulcan thread started by BEagle is a prime example, the 1 Group Dining-In Night had me in stitches from page one, the Canberra thread made me recall my first flight in an RAF jet and this one, the F4, has filled in a few blanks in my memory. There are still some gaps in it, though.

ABIW and SPHLC are two contributors who have a future assured when they hang up their blue-suits, and the husband of the author of "Married to Albert" must be particularly chuffed, not least for the fact that Jilly Cooper is mentioned in the same breath. Not sure that follows, but you get my drift.

I know that Archimedes has, at the behest of a BBC lady, started to pull together the history of the Vulcan. This can only be a good thing, but what nags at me, is that there must be an awful lot more that can be brought forward.

I guess this is really a plea to the moderators to put in place some kind of catch-all that will allow some of the best and funniest contributions to be collected and mayhap to be printed for the benefit of, say the RAF Benevolent Fund. I would willingly pay money to read them in a more relaxed environment, rather than screw my aging eyes up to the screen.

I have no idea of the laws of copyright, the evidence of hearsay, the libel/slander actions that may take place - all I know is that this is the best value web-site that I have ever encountered!

My apologies if this has been mooted before, but with all the bad press from the Treasury about defence cuts, allied to Teflon-Tone indiscriminately committing our Forces to "Wars'R'Us" this might be a way of raising awareness of just what HM Forces have done, and are still doing, despite the best efforts of the un-Civil Servants of MoD.

228 OCU History
 

A2QFI - don't ever say 'John Walmsley's history of 228 OCU' - it was produced by Gordoon Moulds, who later produced a similarly excellent book on 226 OCU when it operated the mighty Lightning.

Gordon was laid up after ejecting from the aircraft in which Dave Nelson died (I was alongside as it happened) and it formed the start of his considerable fundraising for charity, for which he was rightly awarded the MBE

St Athan - summer of '87

I've mentioned it before, but the mighty beast appearing from between the hangars, then standing on its tail on full burner, in a clear blue sky, all the way to 23000 feet, then off to Germany, still sticks firmly in my mind.

Cranwell, March 1987

I also remember, one cold march evening, having been put on restrictions for something pretty bad ( didn't dust behind the 'u' bend on my sink before brasso, I think) I was stood out on the front of College Hall, with some other recidivists. A Phantom came in from the right, lit his burners, then powered away into the dark, night sky.

In union, all we could say was "Oooh!"

That was the first time I actually saw those funny little pulses in a reheat exhaust for real. Up until then, I had always presumed them to be a trick of the camera.

The stories of these beasts up near 100,000 feet make remarkable reading too.

Great, proper aircraft. Sky much duller with its passing. Are there any flying anywhere at all anymore. Surely Mike Beachyhead has one lined up?
:ok:

F-4s; Cranwell.

Someone must have got "that" MJ/PW vid posted as an mpeg somewhere.

Surely.....

Saw it at the Flying Supervisors' Course - lowest measured height was 72 ft!

But the lowest I saw was a mates-in-confidence video which one of the guys had at the EWO course of a 1312 Flt Phantom 'saying hello' to Alice!

MEASLES!
 

Ah yes Beagle, that would be the only ever attempted landing at Alice by a fixed wing ac!

Watched a few 'measles', low and slow was always most spectacular for those on the ground, but when a Phantom disappears from sight sinking rapidly below the edge of the hill, whilst still nose up, it is a huge relief to then see it recover and pull away (alledgedly!).

Sorry if I have offended anyone by saying that John Walmsley put together the F-4 photo book. I understood that, when the OCU was disbanded at Leuchars and at short notice, the photo record was put together, sponsored by BAe, and that JW was the man who pulled it together. If someone else was responsible I apologise.

The Al Vosloo story (briefly) was that aircrew were not permitted to make calls to home from work (even if they paid the cost of the call) as OC Elec Eng said that his staff weren't established to fill in chits for officer's mess bils etc. One was also not allowed to go to the Mess in flying kit to make a call from the payphone there and getting out of a goon suit to go to the mess to tell one's wife one was going to be late for dinner and then get back into it was a pain.

The off station call out system involved 2 officers (one of them the great Vosloo) being telephoned by Ops and told to initiate a call out; these 2 then rang 2 more and thus the word got round. One morning at about 0200 Vos got a call saying "Initiate call out - Exercise Dimwit" or whatever. He replied "S*d off, this is a private telephone and I don't take Service calls on it" - unplugged it from the socket and went back to sleep. Half the aircrew on the base came in at the normal time and were thus about 5 hours late for the exercise! What a pity, what a shame!

OK, this is my longest post to date!

The F4 was my first aircraft after passing out of Halton as a young LAC Rigger in 1977. I was posted to 23 Sqn which was then 'boltholed' at RAF Wethersfield from Wattisham. It was, obviously, my first taste of real aircraft maintenance, flight line servicing and squadron life. And I couldn't have picked a better aircraft or squadron to cut my teeth on.
Everything that I now take for granted I learnt during my time on the F4.
I learnt strange words like: Houchin, Liney, OTR, Fairies, Plumbers, Sooties, Growbags, Koch, 'Leckies, Squawk Box, Wobbly Orange, Jammer, QRA, TACEVAL, MAXEVAL... the list is endless, but you get my drift.

I learnt all about detachment rules, how to speed-eat (especially at supper time), how to fit a drag chute and not catch my nipple in the door whilst trying to close the bl**dy door and pull the T-handle at the same time, how to put out a starter fire with just my woolly-hat, how to free a stuck arrestor hook during a crew-in with just a marshalling bat (very hot and dodgy!), how to stamp rounds into the links ready for loading the gun (not my trade but everybody seemed to join in especially during APC), again the list is endless.

I remember sitting around outside the line hut during summer air defence exercises waiting for the line sgt to shout scramble, and then running like mad to get to the aircraft first. During one of these at Wethersfield I seem to remember being passed by a pilot or navigator on a bike. 'What a good idea', I thought, until his PEC got caught in the rear wheel and he fell off in a crumpled heap. I didn't know whether to stop and help or continue running to my aircraft...I continued running!

23 sqn also gave me my first taste of QRA. There wasn't much in the way of entertainment then, certainly no video games or the like, so we played Uckers for hours interspersed with setting fire to people who had made the mistake of falling asleep! You were also almost guaranteed at least one live scramble to make it all worthwhile. At first I thought these scramble starts were just sheer panic but slowly (after getting the hang of them) I realised that they were well organised panics and everyone had their own part to play. This didn't stop us from (at least) once sending off Q1 with all the Noddy caps still on though. It took an awful lot of strength to pull them off after the sortie!

I remember my first APC detachment in the Med, it was hot, hard, non-stop work and there seemed to be a never ending queue of Phantoms waiting to be OTR'd.

I also learnt the noble art of riggering on the Phantom. I learnt that drilled out rivet tails, if not retrieved from within the flaps or ailerons make a lot of messy dents in the skin when they vibrate and bang around at Mach 2!
I learnt that the rear canopy will jettison if you forget to bypass one of the cartridges during canopy jettison checks. It makes an impressive bang and goes an even more impressive long way as well! I learnt how to wire-lock whilst hanging upside down, how to drill and easy-out stuck screws, how to leap up on to the wing using the Fletcher tank, how to hang on to the folded outer wing in the wind and the rain without dropping it onto the heads of my fellow riggers below. I learnt so many things and got to know the F4 inside out.

It was a strong ac and took a lot of punishment. I also think it was the noisiest although the Tornado intake noise is quite bad. I can recall being on the outside during reheat engine runs and feeling my body organs move. Your 'mates' would try to push your ear defenders against the fuselage so that your brain would physically vibrate in your skull! If it was during the evening or night we would stand behind the blast deflector vanes on the sheepdip and watch the reheat light up, it was a fantastic sight!

It was somewhere amongst all this that I realised that I had definitely made the right decision when I walked into the CIO.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings.

Those are just a few of my memories of the Phantom and I hope I never lose them.

Interesting post, Dark Helmet. Didn't realise in all those years I flew the Toom how much enjoyment the groundcrew got out of the job - I always got the impression that it was a bitch to service but perhaps that was the stock excuse for late rectification work!

It was certainly a challenging aircraft to fly well in all its' roles and air-to-air with the fixed sight in the C model was a classic case where only seaman's eye worked although the stick and rudders had to be stirred a bit during the burst to guarantee a hit on the dart. Bombing, rocketing and strafe with the fixed depressable sight also needed lots of skill (and a bit of luck) and in those days a good score was more to do with the crew than the kit.

A radar that showed raw plots in relative velocity also gave the crew a challenge in interpretation. Todays' picture giving range, aspect and TCA leaves little excuse for screwing up an intercept.

A mans' aeroplane - sorry girls but you didn't fly Tooms.

Soddim,

It was a bitch to maintain but I didn't know any better at the time!
Come to think of it, all combat aircraft are.

Any seat (Martin Baker 7A1Mk3) stories/gossip or tales would be most welcome on the Ejection seat thread.
Thanks in anticipation!!
Jimgriff

Right on Helmetman

Burnt hands from the stab feel probe; stabbed in the back by Sparrow fins; no knees in your trousers.... that reminds me of another story.

Cobra lineys were forever griefed by Wildenrath's RAF Admin folk, who took particular dislike to the lack of toe caps and worn through knees which were de "rigger" when most of your shift was spent running around the HAS on your knees.

One particular Admin SGT took up his case with the Cobra WOman. The WOman invited him to come along to APC at Akrotiri to find out just why Toom lineys have no toecaps on their shoes or knees in their trousers.

As the days progressed the Admin SGT began to grow a heart and threw himself into helping out on the line. Unfortunately many lineys had been on the end of the SGT's wrath and having jankered their way through the mess tin room etc were not quite ready to let bygones be bygones. The SGT insisted on helping load the gun with 1000 rounds. Now that's not an easy task for a fit young fella let alone a chap in his early '50's, particularly in the heat of the Med. Sarge sits himself down by the gun as shown by the liney and uses his feet to brace himself against it. He starts to wind the handle as the liney feeds the rounds in from the other side. Unfortunately this particular liney had a very big score to settle. As Sarge heaved on the winding handle the liney heaved back on the ammo belt until a loud popping sound was heard. This was not a mechanical pop, more an anatomical pop, as Sarge ruptured himself.

Endex for Sarge as he was medevac'd back to Wegberg.

Needless to say having no toecaps or raggedy knees was never quite the heinous crime it once was

.:D

A man's aeroplane indeed but this girly managed to blag a lift in the back of one in 1981 - I was the 43(F) squadron ops girly and it was my last detachment to Akrotiri before I got promoted. My parachute drill consisted of watching several still-pi$$ed-from- the-night-before navs jumping off the table in the crew room. Then off Ian Dugmore, XT866 (subsequently crashed on approach at Leuchars, I got the blame for upending my handbag in the back) and I went. Burner climb in a clean-winger (even some of the navs hadn't done that, ooooh they were jealous!), PD to Larnaca, chased a Canberra around, went supersonic and then 600kts along the coast at a couple of feet. Over 20 years ago and I still recall it like it was yesterday. I spent 10 years at Leuchars/Coningsby and have loved F4s with a passion ever since. In fact I've just hung up my headset after 27 years as an air trafficker, and the last thing I did was take my F4 pin off my headset where it had resided for a long, long time. Definitely my favourite aircraft.

:ok: :ok: :ok:

F4 Phantom
 

The said flypast of Alice on X-mas day 1988 was a warm-up session for the world land speed record holder. Powered naturally by Speys on both occasions

And to think I sponsored DD and Thrust SSC to the tune of several hundred quid....!!

First bloke to achieve the LSR at > M1.0. B£oody amazing - and the unwashed genpub don't even know his name.

I am not a nostalgia junkie and I definitely believe things have moved on since the mighty F4, mostly for the better, but the Phantom will be viewed rightly as a classic and a thoroughbred. In it's time with the RAF and RN it did nearly everything - recce, air defence, ground attack, strike and flying girlie ATCs around. It was tough, fast, carried a big payload and went a fair distance with it. When Tranche 2 Eurofighter finally makes it into service the RAF will get as versatile an aircraft as the F4, but not until then. I'll be way too old to fly fast jets by then.

I will never forget my frst F4 trip, out of Coningsby one cold, clear day. The jet was clean, we were airborne by the cable, went into a 70 degree climb and the earth dropped away from us. Magic. Out over the Wash, into an impromptu fight with some USAF F4s, and home with the 'mission over' light on. And they paid me for it!

I loved it, flew 3 tours in it, went all over the place in it and it got me home every time. It was a great jet.:E

Dark Helmet,

We were at Weathersfield at the same time. I was on 56 then, living in those huts in the bullpen. That was a nice summer, as I recall it.

Anybody remember the beginning of the FGR2 at Coningsby in 1968 when the ginger beers managed to set the operation up as a centralised servicing empire? I enjoyed witnessing the confrontation one happy hour between OC 6 Sqn and OC Eng. The chief ginger beer had the audacity to forcibly point out that he personally had set this system up and if OC 6 managed to change it to sqn servicing then he OC Eng would resign - he did and he did!

After that we no longer had to take dayglo canopeners to Akrotiri to stick on the tails to show everyone that we were a sqn.

Certainly do - was on 1 Course and can remember all the hassle of centalised servicing. Was glad to go to RAFG. On return Coningsby had returned to reality

Wee Jock, was your F4 pin made out of an old Penny by a guy at Wainfleet?
The closest I got to an airborne toom was at Wainfleet when 78TFS used to do their range clear flypasts to check for hung ordnance. We used stand on the balcony of the old tower at approx 35 Feet AGL and try to check the underside of the aircraft.
We never did see the underside as they used to scream past at 420kts at the same level as us with the Pilot and WSO waving frantically.
Spent 3 Years at CGY having a ball, used to love working nights in the tower watching burner take-offs and nipping out to the caravan to watch cable engagements.

More nostalgia from the days of Olly Harvest in Akrotiri when OC U2s was boasting about the climb rate of his straight wing photocruisers. He got as far as claiming outrageous capabilities when I challenged him to a climbing contest the following morning at o'dark thirty. Because we had to wait on the threshold for his outriggers to be removed from the runway, we didn't get to barrel roll around him until 10.000ft - but that was enough to win the barrel of Keo he wagered.

Guess he learned not to confuse climb angle with climb rate!

Maxburner,
Yes, it was a glorious summer that year. I still have fond memories of sitting around outside the line hut under our -'borrowed' Greene King pub parasol and furniture! How we managed to get it and 4 of us all in the back of our Bedford CF during a supper run I will never know! Of course it was the company and the banter that made it special!

I do remember the bullpen as we had to move our F4s there for safe keeping every weekend.

Moderator,

Obviously you are not able to make a "sticky" out of all the aircraft types ppruners wish to vent their nostalgia on but how about this one - at least for a while. The sticky Victor thread was posted and made a sticky a while ago but it has less viewings and has not had a post since 4 April. The Phantom was our only frontline fighter for many years and our first successful multi-role aircraft since the Spitfire - go on, make an old man happy and give it "sticky" firsts for a while, at least.

I believe that the engines for Thrust SSC came from the Boscombe Down Phantom XT 597, a pre-series F-4K. Not many individual engine units have been to M2.0 in the air and M1.0+ on the ground!

For a non-expert, would someone be kind enough to briefly explain the main differences in performance between the U.K.'s Spey-engined F-4's, and the J79 version, please?
Also, some decent U.K. Phantom piccies here > www.aviation-picture-hangar.co.uk/Phantom.html

The Spey Phantom, known in the late '60s as the 50:50 Phantom (but not by anyone in the RAF!), was suppoesd to use a domestic engine to offest the procurement costs. The Spey produced more thrust at low level and mud moving speeds, but the greater intake drag ruined its high speed and high Mach capability. However, it was bought primarily as a mud mover, not as an AD fighter.

When the putrid pussy came into service, the Phantom assumed an Air Defence role. The engines were far less robust than the reliable, almost bullet proof J79 - but good enough in the end.

The FG1 and FGR2 both had the Spey; FG1 was ex-Royal Navy and had no HF, no INS, folding wings and a slotted tailplane. FGR2 was the definitive RAF version.

In 1983-4 the RAF acquired a squadron of F-4Js from the desert scrapyard. At a time when other air forces were buying F16s and F18s, the US were astonished. "F-4s? - sure you don't mean F-14s?". They were tested and the 74 sqn crews converted to them at North Island, California and they were trailed home on OP TIGER TRAIL 1 to 5 in 1983-4 by VC10Ks operating out of Miramar. The trail I did was Miramar - Dayton Goose - UK; the F4s went via Wright-Patterson. At that time the VC10K wasn't cleared to pass JP-4 through the pods, so we had to pick up Jet-A1 from civil airports instead. The leg from Dayton/W-P to Goose was also my instrument rating test - that's the way we did things back then!

In RAF service, contrary to what many may think, the F4J was never termed the Phantom F3 - that was invented by the spotter magazines - it was the F4J(UK). They were painted a slightly different shade of blue/grey and often flown in the well-liked 'Bravo fit' with just a centreline tank instead of the usual Fletchers.

The crews liked them and 74(F) was a squadron which enjoyed tremendous esprit de corps; the F4J (or, even better, the F4S) was the Phantom the RAF should have had all along - instead of the most expensive, most powerful and slowest that was the FG1/FGR2!

Thanks everyone, for memories of the mighty 'Tomb', brought a smile to my face. I only managed half a tour on F4s, but it still managed to by turns terrify and stupify. Some scattered memories, in no particular order...

Northern QRA (when we had several), hooter going off at 5:45, somehow getting our !!!!! in a sock and blasting off into a Scottish dawn after 6 minutes still tying our bootlaces...

Flying close enough to Russian ac to feel the prop vibration, and waving (!!) at the crewman positioning his giant box brownie before sliding across to the other side (to his great disapointment)...

5 day lock-in exercises, when you lived, breathed (and sometimes died) as a family, closer than most actual families. Checking in using comedy voices, or holding your nose - those who remember this know what I mean...

Being young and immortal in the most fantastic fighting machine ever built, alone and unafraid...

Being scared witless by the most fantastic fighting machine ever built, usually when it decided not to go where you wanted it to...

I could go on, and probably have too much already. Suffice to say, I feel privelaged to have flown F4s. On a completely unrelated subject, I don't like stickies - if a thread is as vibrant this one, it will stay high up the list anyway. However, an archive of favourite threads would be a good way to preserve the better prose and a book sounds like an awfully good idea. Gloria Finis.

On the topic of the F-4Js recovered from the desert; I remember reading an engineering report which stated that when they were being made airworthy, an access panel on one of the aircraft was opened a 'petrified lizard' fell out. The senior engineering officer had added the comment that "since these aircraft were previously operated by the US Navy, no wonder the lizard was petrified, I'd be scared sh!tless myself!"

F4 Bought for Air to Mud?
 

BEagle old chap I know you won't mind a slight correction to your last thread.

Quote:

However, it was bought primarily as a mud mover, not as an AD fighter.

Not so. If you research the Defence White Papers of the day - as I had to once (won't bore you with the detail) you will find that the procurement decision for the F4 was for an air defence fighter. However, the cancellation of TSR2 left a capability gap which was then plugged by the F4 until Jaguar could enter Service. From the outset the intention was for the F4 to fill the air defence role in due course.

Great aircraft in either role - and as a recce bird too. More multi-role than Tornado ever was.

More multi-role indeed. However, the RAF in their wisdom turned it into a single-role AD fighter and made it irreversable by disconnecting and reallocating some of the pylon wiring. Now it appears the RAF have finally learned their lesson and are only interested in multi-role combat aircraft - makes sense if you only have a few to be able to use them in whatever is the priority role at the time.

Wake Contest
 

Having flown all 3 marks of F4 in RAF service I can attest that one advantage of the Spey models over the J79 was the downward cant of the exhaust. Thus when returning to Akronelli from yet another disappointing attempt to marmelise the 180 Kt banner it was possible to cut a wake in the Med by steaming along at oh Christ not many feet.

Prizes for the man who cut the longest wake. Nil points for hitting the surface as we suspect at least one poor sod did.

Folded wings and flying?
 

Can anyone out there verify a story I once heard about an US Navy F4 being prematurely shot off a carrier with its wings still in the folded position. I have no idea if that is possible (sounds unlikely) or how it could be unnoticed by all the deck crew who scramble under, over and about a carrier deck but maybe it happened. I have my doubts that it would even be controllable but I never flew anything like that.

Anyone heard anything like that ?

Flying with folding wings....
 

I remember back in the early 70s seeing a flight safety film on the subject of ejections. IIRC it was taken at McD's plant in St Louis where the camera crew had been set up to film the first (?) flight of the UK F4M. This was duly recorded and they kept rolling as there was another F4 about to get airborne on an airtest, Israeli-destined, I think.

Mighty F4 rolls, plugs in burners and rotates. And rotates. And rotates until it has zero horizontal speed and barely a few knots vertically. At this juncture the two bemused occupants opt to cut short their journey and return to mother earth courtesy of the ejection-seats. All the while the camera is recording the events, the F4 finally succumbs to gravity and crashes tail-first, still within the airfield boundary. The rear-seater makes his entry back to the ground not 20 feet from the camera! Stunning. The reason behind the incident was, I think, due to the tailplane not being connected properly to the return position after initial rotate. It had flown the porevious day and been checked out. I'm sure some of the F4 drivers here can explain the details...

This was followed by a quasi-weapons deployment shot, with US commentary along the lines of "...Here we are expecting to see the effects of the re-tard bomb at low level. What we see in actuality is the succesful use of the Mk blah-di-blah seats from two F4s..." The Phantoms came steaming in at low-level to take out a bridge somewhere, but unfortunately the retard bombs didn't function as per the manufacturers intent, exploding on impact just beneath the undersides of their deliverers. What a waste!

I also seem to remember an RAF F4 in Germany in 1974/5 taking off from Bruggen, in a rush to make a slot-time on the ranges, the primary a/c having gone u/s on the pan and the crew switching to the back-up. Guy in the tower, NBing the take-off, makes the classic call "Alpha 45, your wings are folding...." Not sure what the crew responded, as they were soon to be seen floating earthwards on the end of their parachutes whilst one of Aunty Betty's finest investments makes and undignified return whence it came.

Anyone got the full story?

:ok:

When I was at Wattisham I worked with two fellow Riggers whom were at Bruggen at the time of the wing folding incident. I seem to recall that only one outer wing folded; the other being correctly locked down.
In all the rush nobody spotted that the wing fold lock tell-tale flag was (obviously) still sticking up.
I believe that after this incident all the tell-tale flags were painted day-glo orange.

After hearing their tale I always gave the wing a huge waggle during BFs and TRs!