The young chap 5 in from the left (with the slightly rakish mustache) is Bomber Brooks - really nice guy. A fighter controller with Butcher Radar at the time. IIRC, he got his soubriquet when he turned up at Neatishead in 1988 as a Plt Off and left his briefcase un-attended and un-marked in the car park. I believe the RAFP 'disposed of it' as if it was an IED.
Not sure what a first tourist Plt Off needed with a briefcase.
We both celebrated Xmas in Belize - not very festive in 90 deg heat.

Sun Who

Daneb

The group photo was indeed an RAF lunch and it was 16th Dec 1989. I'm on the front row, 2nd from the left and look about 12 years old!

"Seem to remember the lunch would go on until a Puma departed very low over the Mess!"

I was flying that Puma. My crewman was Sgt DS at the time and we'd just had to abseil Santa into the middle of APC for the Xmas Fayre. As I'd not been able to have a beer at the lunch, I thought it best that I made a point by trying to take the roof off the mess! Afterwards, I got a right bollocking from OC Ops (M McG) who had a bit of a sense of humour failure and threatened to send me home on the next VC10. As it was approaching Xmas and I had a wife waiting for me at home, I considered doing it again! However, the 1563 Flt Cdr (IM) was a lot more understanding and gave me a fatherly chat.....I think he was quite pleased really. I left a few days later on my scheduled departure date, never to return.

JJ

Lunch club photograph
 

JJ,

I'm standing behind you, in combats. I can't believe how young we all look!!

We must have flown together as I seem to remember spending almost as much time in the front of a Puma as Gazelle!

Funny how all Puma night flights always began and ended over the Mess too!

Best wishes

J

Thanks for all these memories chaps. I was at Butcher Radar 1983 ,long long time ago. It was all very basic but great fun. The dentist's story reminded me that our dentist at the time was a lady half Colonel who was absolutely brilliant and joined in all the wind ups of which there were many. Had to call a halt to them after I had sent a signal to Strike asking what they were playing at, then to be told it was another wind up. The reply I got back was "colourful". They were fantastic days and as you say the Pumas and Gazelles did us proud.

JJ, Wazzing, eh? Can't think where you got that habit from.

Night flying, Belize: Myself and a colleague were ordered to night fly one sunday by a certain S/L BB (by name and by nature). We appealed as there was a film on at the O. Mess that we really wanted to watch. "Appeal disallowed, get on with it!"

The O. Mess cinema screen was a white painted canvas sheet on a couple of steel poles stuck in the grass outside. Annoyingly, we could see it from the circuit. I was slightly less annoyed when I discovered that the Puma steerable searchlight could illuminate it from downwind, apparently just enough to wash out the film...... :E

After a few circuits, we got a message via ATC from S/L BB, who was watching the film - "Oi, pack it in!"

As promised some 1990 photographs

http://i571.photobucket.com/albums/s...5-2009_004.jpg


I am one in from the right. Jonathan Hull is on the left with the moustache and para wings.



http://i571.photobucket.com/albums/s...5-2009_012.jpg


Open air dentistry with an audience maybe Jalacte, but the slide is marked San Benito


http://i571.photobucket.com/albums/s...5-2009_025.jpg


http://i571.photobucket.com/albums/s...5-2009_034.jpg


Confined area beach landing!!

[IMG]http://i571.photobucket.com/albums/s...5-2009_061.jpg[/IMG]



http://i571.photobucket.com/albums/s...5-2009_037.jpg

See having your teeth taken out wasn't so bad was it?

http://i571.photobucket.com/albums/s...5-2009_031.jpg


Padre and young friend

Pics of Belize
 

Hi
I am new to this forum and was browsing the web for pics of Belize.
I served there in 1984 Royal Engineers and the Inf Battalion was 3 Para

The second picture is of Cadenas Mountain top Op overlooking the guatamalien border.

If you have any more pics would be great to see them

I now live in Bavaria not far from the Czech border


Best wishes

Tom

No change there then - all stems from him having to jump out of a Canberra in his early days!

I was OC the Flight in '85 - probably the best 6mths of my (lengthy) time in the RAF. Never forget first visit to Caye Chapel - entertained by an ex Wg Cdr who gace me a couple of pints of Pina Colada - never had it before, and had no idea how much Appletons Rum was in them. Next thing I remember is waking up in my room the next morning; in the meantime, I'd been to the reef, swum, LHS in the Puma back to APC. Never again (and I haven't had a PC since, and probably never will!). Great days and fantastic flying (who can forget setting the radalt to 50 ft for the run down to the south, and trying not to let the light go out).

Oldbeefer, you mean McG, Officer i/c Gliding, RAF Aktrotiri? :E

And those notorious Pina Coladas were probably mixed by a chap named Price on Caye Chapel, IIRC.

I gave up the low level all the way to Punta Gorda when a huge brown pelican nearly took me out about half way down route.... served it right for standing up! :eek:

Mmmm

On my first night in Belize I too sampled the rum with my new "mates".
Spent the rest of the night alternately sleeping with my head on the toilet seat and "saying hello to God on the porcelain telephone"!!
Never drank rum again, the smell still makes me feel ill now, 30 years on!

lsh
:E

I've heard that 25 Flt are pulling out and going North to BATUS; does this mean all Mil will be leaving Belize?

On behalf of all of us SHNFI mates who never got further west than Belleek can I just say:

"Blah Blah Belize Blah Blah"

(I'm only jealous)

C'mon, at least one of you got as far south as Dundalk before almost running out of fuel.... :E

Oh Shy, you are awful!

Price - yeah, Nigel - partner a Guatemalan lady. Their daughter (at uni in Oxford at the time) was totally stunning!

Cornwall at War Museum
 

My name is Steve Perry. Letting you know that the radar that was in Belize is now on display at the Cornwall at War Museum near Camelford in North Cornwall.
I was posted to Belize when it was still British Honduras flying out in a Bristol Britannia in September 74, refueling at Gander and the Bahamas. The 'International Airport' was a runway in the middle of a swamp with a shed, I mean terminal building at one end. I think the only aircraft that used it were the Britannias changing the army units every 6 months and the weekly 'milk run' by the Hercules. While we were there Hurricane Fifi devastated Honduras to the south and we were flown down by Hercules on relief operations. While we were there we were required to get the garrison into 'good order' and the stores and equipment up to strength. Our recce platoon went down to the Southern border area to cut clearings in the jungle which seemed a waste of time. How wrong we were!! We returned to the UK in March 75. In Sept 75 we became Spearhead battalion and were sent to Northern Ireland. A Commando of Royal Marines then became Spearhead and were sent to Belize as Guatemala were preparing to invade. That's what our preparations had been for. The clearings were possibly for aircraft?? perhaps Harriers or helicopters? Not sure but they were definitely for something

Doesn't seem like that long ago that I was enjoying the sunshine at Butcher Radar in 1977-78.

Deja Vue
 

I wonder how sorry some people are that we left Belize, probably to satisfy the bean counters, despite still having interests in that area. The French and Dutch kept garrisons in the area and consequently they had the wherewithall to respond to the recent hurricane disaster. Not us though. We rely on deploying from UK which all takes time and gives the media the excuse, not that they need one, to describe our response as "pathetic" and "too little, too late." If we had kept a small presence in Belize with some pre-positioned stores, we could have responded as quickly as the French and Dutch. Short term thinking rules - OK

My last visit was thirty five years ago - where did those years go?

Time I went back, methinks.

But this time I'll go at a time of my own choosing and certainly won't be spending three days eating awful meals from bacofoil containers over Christmas at the "Gateway House", BZN, waiting for a VC-10 flight.

Went twice, '76 & '84. Quite a lot changed in that time, particularly on Ambergris Caye, so I can't begin to imagine it now.

You had meals? WTF!

CG