Swing the lamp, pull up a sandbag.
Yes, especially as I had nothing to shoot back with - at least in a war-zone you expect to be engaged and fly tactically, in a peace-time scenario with instability on all sides and every attempt to avoid provocation it is subtly different.
Not being a war hero it certainly made me pay attention as the barrels followed us round the sky - although it was your chaps in the embassy who had the habit of shooting first and asking questions later
Not being a war hero it certainly made me pay attention as the barrels followed us round the sky - although it was your chaps in the embassy who had the habit of shooting first and asking questions later
Perhaps your reputation precedes you and no questions are required!
Hey...it is his story....let him tell it anyway he wants!
Just to clarify - the ZSUs were on the green line in Beirut in 1987 (not manned by Americans) and the US Embassy was a little bit North where the Lebanese Air Force had been shot at by the Embassy Marines - there that wasn't tricky was it?
Nigerian In Law
As a retired prostitute I couldn't possibly be pious, condescending or ever believe that my background is flawless. Having only flown some helicopters, never as well as HM R.A.F. (after all, I was an Army NCO pilot), I've definitely not been at risk anywhere ever.
I envy those who can tell their grandchildren tales of bravery and heroism.
Sas, do you know anyone with a spare high horse I could borrow ?
NEO
I envy those who can tell their grandchildren tales of bravery and heroism.
Sas, do you know anyone with a spare high horse I could borrow ?
NEO
I will ask around and see if there are any excess to need that can be had.
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Oh, you are cruel, NEO.
I'll have to have you around to our next regimental reunion - there are a couple of chaps I'd like you to meet.
My shout.
Pay no heed to him, SASless - you're cool.
Are you any good with the babes, BTW?
I'll tell you about the one with the Colonel's daughter (Singleton 1967) if you can give us a couple of good ones in return.
p.s. Perhaps not .. this is a family program.
I'll have to have you around to our next regimental reunion - there are a couple of chaps I'd like you to meet.
My shout.
Pay no heed to him, SASless - you're cool.
Are you any good with the babes, BTW?
I'll tell you about the one with the Colonel's daughter (Singleton 1967) if you can give us a couple of good ones in return.
p.s. Perhaps not .. this is a family program.
Last edited by Stanwell; 9th Oct 2016 at 20:24.
When it comes to the Babes....well honestly I am a Legend....in my own mind!
NEO - I have flown with (and still do fly with) a lot of Army NCO pilots - maybe we have met somewhere?
I certainly wasn't trying to 'eleven o'rife or 'black dog' anyone in terms of exposure to danger - just trying to clarify what was a very throwaway element of my non-stories. I am in awe of those I still fly with who have seen stuff in places in Iraq and Afghanistan both on the ground and in the air - hence why I said my stories are boring in comparison.
I certainly wasn't trying to 'eleven o'rife or 'black dog' anyone in terms of exposure to danger - just trying to clarify what was a very throwaway element of my non-stories. I am in awe of those I still fly with who have seen stuff in places in Iraq and Afghanistan both on the ground and in the air - hence why I said my stories are boring in comparison.
Nigerian In Law
Crab,
I honestly didn't think my posts came across as arrogant or old soldier-ish until your earlier post. If they did then I sincerely apologise. You may or may not know that my flying career worldwide came to an abrupt end following 3 years of cancer and malnutrition which changed my entire outlook on life, friends, family and the whole kit and caboodle (see "News of NEO" started by another Ppruner). That's not intended to be some sort of excuse, just the reason I value the memories I have.
We all have "war stories" of different eras and ilks; eric starting this thread is an opportunity for some of us to chew the fat and type a load of nostalgic stuff which some may find funny, interesting or just inane banter. Nonetheless it's just that; harmless banter that I'm sure everyone who posts here agrees is intended to give no offence.
Once again, no harm or offence was intended and I apologise if you interpreted otherwise. I certainly wasn't trying to preach or infer that my experiences exceeded anyone else's.
Cheers and all the best,
NEO
P.S. I love you long time for 50 dollar !
I honestly didn't think my posts came across as arrogant or old soldier-ish until your earlier post. If they did then I sincerely apologise. You may or may not know that my flying career worldwide came to an abrupt end following 3 years of cancer and malnutrition which changed my entire outlook on life, friends, family and the whole kit and caboodle (see "News of NEO" started by another Ppruner). That's not intended to be some sort of excuse, just the reason I value the memories I have.
We all have "war stories" of different eras and ilks; eric starting this thread is an opportunity for some of us to chew the fat and type a load of nostalgic stuff which some may find funny, interesting or just inane banter. Nonetheless it's just that; harmless banter that I'm sure everyone who posts here agrees is intended to give no offence.
Once again, no harm or offence was intended and I apologise if you interpreted otherwise. I certainly wasn't trying to preach or infer that my experiences exceeded anyone else's.
Cheers and all the best,
NEO
P.S. I love you long time for 50 dollar !
Last edited by Nigerian Expat Outlaw; 9th Oct 2016 at 23:49. Reason: Didn't excel at O level English.
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I can remember when it was 50 naira ....
I nearly killed a helicopter pilot once, telling him my best war story. He almost choked laughing.
Between the "There I was at 30 thousand feet, nothing on the clock but the maker's name, and that was in Bantu ... " and the "When I was on Shackletons ... " stories I really think I have heard them all, but do not let that stop anyone from sharing.
Here in print it's not the same as in the bar at one in the morning after a few pints, when the 122 rockets fell closer and closer so that the shrapnel rattled off our tin pots ... much like Walter Mitty, in fact, but minus the wife! http://www.fraumuenster.ch/wp-conten...lter-Mitty.pdf
Between the "There I was at 30 thousand feet, nothing on the clock but the maker's name, and that was in Bantu ... " and the "When I was on Shackletons ... " stories I really think I have heard them all, but do not let that stop anyone from sharing.
Here in print it's not the same as in the bar at one in the morning after a few pints, when the 122 rockets fell closer and closer so that the shrapnel rattled off our tin pots ... much like Walter Mitty, in fact, but minus the wife! http://www.fraumuenster.ch/wp-conten...lter-Mitty.pdf
Last edited by chuks; 10th Oct 2016 at 06:50.
NEO - 
Between the "There I was at 30 thousand feet, nothing on the clock but the maker's name, and that was in Bantu ... " and the "When I was on Shackletons ... " stories I really think I have heard them all, but do not let that stop anyone from sharing
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Ah, yes ....
The funny thing was that although the name of the outfit was Bristow Helicopters Nigeria, Ltd. the guys in the bar in Lagos, for many years our only fixed-wing base, seemed to think that helicopter pilots were some lesser breed, almost as low as we Twin Otter pilots.
When the "Glass Cockpit Commandos" showed up with their Dornier 328s it got pretty heavy, some nights.
We used to sneak up on this annoying little plastic model of a 328 that this one British Bullfrog had put on display and turn its wings around backwards, to his considerable annoyance. In fact, he went purple and looked as if he was ready to have a stroke, every time he saw that it had been desecrated. I told him to take it away before something really bad happened to it but he never listened to a mere Twotter driver, as I was then. Then the engineers struck, Aralditing its wings on backwards! He went mad after that. Well, "madder," I suppose.
One night in the bar our friend Neddy Hold-On told me that I was going to bust my next prof check. The bar went quiet then, as I asked why that might be.
"Two of us have to renew our CAA Check Captain qualifications, so that these checks are different. They are to be flown to proper British standards with a CAA observer. These are not the usual standards, what we use for you people on our Nigerian operation."
"I see .... So, what is the big difference?"
"The CAA is very strict about altimetry, something you probably are not properly trained in. Never mind, though; the next day I shall give you a check done to the standards you can meet."
You can imagine how I felt being told that in front of a bar full of frenemies, but I just nodded and took another pull on my pint, a very long pull on my pint.
On the day of the dreaded CAA checkride it was me and the British Bullfrog, when I went first. The first level-off after initial climb was something to see, the sim jittering about as I tried to settle at 35-hundred feet on QNH, hand-flown of course. Then I just thought to myself, "Relax and just fly the damned thing; you know how to do that, CAA or no CAA." The rest of the ride went okay, actually.
We took a short break after two hours and then swapped seats, when it was the Bullfrog's turn. He got a single-engine ILS approach with a single-engine go-around, cleared to, yes, 35-hundred feet, when the 328Jet really performs on one engine!
There I was being a good FO, calling out, "300 feet to level-off, check rate of climb; passing three thousand five hundred feet on QNH, check rate of climb; three hundred feet above assigned altitude, check rate of climb ....." but the Bullfrog was doing one of those "Great Stone God" numbers over there in the left seat, basically ignoring me as if to show that I knew nothing. Flying that way we ended up at something like four thousand feet, still on QNH, until we did a bunt.
In the debrief I was told that I had passed, that it was a good ride. The poor old Bullfrog, though, his ride was an altitude bust!
I am not as stupid as I look; I never said a word about this to Neddy.
When the "Glass Cockpit Commandos" showed up with their Dornier 328s it got pretty heavy, some nights.
We used to sneak up on this annoying little plastic model of a 328 that this one British Bullfrog had put on display and turn its wings around backwards, to his considerable annoyance. In fact, he went purple and looked as if he was ready to have a stroke, every time he saw that it had been desecrated. I told him to take it away before something really bad happened to it but he never listened to a mere Twotter driver, as I was then. Then the engineers struck, Aralditing its wings on backwards! He went mad after that. Well, "madder," I suppose.
One night in the bar our friend Neddy Hold-On told me that I was going to bust my next prof check. The bar went quiet then, as I asked why that might be.
"Two of us have to renew our CAA Check Captain qualifications, so that these checks are different. They are to be flown to proper British standards with a CAA observer. These are not the usual standards, what we use for you people on our Nigerian operation."
"I see .... So, what is the big difference?"
"The CAA is very strict about altimetry, something you probably are not properly trained in. Never mind, though; the next day I shall give you a check done to the standards you can meet."
You can imagine how I felt being told that in front of a bar full of frenemies, but I just nodded and took another pull on my pint, a very long pull on my pint.
On the day of the dreaded CAA checkride it was me and the British Bullfrog, when I went first. The first level-off after initial climb was something to see, the sim jittering about as I tried to settle at 35-hundred feet on QNH, hand-flown of course. Then I just thought to myself, "Relax and just fly the damned thing; you know how to do that, CAA or no CAA." The rest of the ride went okay, actually.
We took a short break after two hours and then swapped seats, when it was the Bullfrog's turn. He got a single-engine ILS approach with a single-engine go-around, cleared to, yes, 35-hundred feet, when the 328Jet really performs on one engine!
There I was being a good FO, calling out, "300 feet to level-off, check rate of climb; passing three thousand five hundred feet on QNH, check rate of climb; three hundred feet above assigned altitude, check rate of climb ....." but the Bullfrog was doing one of those "Great Stone God" numbers over there in the left seat, basically ignoring me as if to show that I knew nothing. Flying that way we ended up at something like four thousand feet, still on QNH, until we did a bunt.
In the debrief I was told that I had passed, that it was a good ride. The poor old Bullfrog, though, his ride was an altitude bust!
I am not as stupid as I look; I never said a word about this to Neddy.
Last edited by chuks; 10th Oct 2016 at 12:32.
The funny thing was that although the name of the outfit was Bristow Helicopters Nigeria, Ltd. the guys in the bar in Lagos, for many years our only fixed-wing base, seemed to think that helicopter pilots were some lesser breed, almost as low as we Twin Otter pilots
On a positive note, at least the company rewarded their extra skill and worthiness by paying a 'jet allowance', which was something we helicopter pilots applauded and were not in any way irritated by.
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That's just fear.
Fear of being taken for a lot of precious, whiny little bitches!
When I went on the 328 I had one guy complaining to me that with one of the two packs out the cockpit temperature could get up to 25º C.! Brutal ....
(I remember the first time I leaned in to get a look at the cockpit of the new EC-155, leaning against the seat back cushion as I did so. When I backed out I realized that the arm of my shirt was now soaked in sweat from that cushion like a big, wet sponge. Eeewww!)
Another good one was listening to whining about having to squeeze the 328 into the NAF Base Port Harcourt, a tight fit at 5,300 feet long and 100 feet wide! I finally told this moaning German to get a life, to go take a look at Warri Airstrip some time, 700 x 18 meters or whatever that was.
That guy was ex-Lufthansa ... no idea how his career took the turn it did, to end up in the Center of Excrement with us, but something must have gone badly wrong there. He got kind of bored one day down at our hangar when he was on a day off, dressed in a tee shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. Then he went walkabout, wandering into the Police Air Wing hangar for want of anything better to do. The policeman on guard duty watched him wandering around, doing nothing about that until our man touched one of the derelict 222s there. Then the policeman pounced, arressing him!
I guess the CP was not happy, having to buy him back ....
Not long afterwards I came up with a new game, Touch the Helicopter. Points could only be scored by going into the PAW hangar and doing that, but not being arres/sed, of course, with more and more points being awarded for the less and less that you wore. Double points for no tee shirt, triple points for no shorts .... Max points could be scored by doing that naked, but I never found anyone who wanted to play the game with me.
Boredom was a constant threat in Lagos, and it gave rise to all sorts of odd behavior on the part of hot, bored, unhappy people working as subcontractors for Shell. The usual response was alcohol abuse and adultery, but I got bored with the one, and the other was not an option because of a very strict Catholic upbringing, one that taught me how to practice guilt without sex.
When our little friend the Scottish Dwarf was caught up in that sex scandal I used to swap notes with this rather clever young Nigerian woman who was in charge of our Shell terminal in Lagos. She was always good for a laugh that way, wanting to know what was going on "down the line," even when it was some obvious lie about those placed unjustly above us. (Who was below us, the Tea Lady? Well, her and the helicopter pilots, of course!)
One day, returning from a brutal day of four or even five sectors flown, there she was again, asking "What news on the Rialto?"
Something came over me then, so that I baited her with the Dwarf's unfolding drama. (What had started as some sort of semi-consensual sex scandal, bad enough in its way since the other party was his houseboy, not even the Tea Lady, had escalated weekly with the supposed use of bribery; threats of violence; actual violence; and even, last week, the supposed use of a pistol ... all just supposedly but never mind that now, because we were bored, and because we hated the Scottish Dwarf.)
So I said to my little partner in bitchery, "You remember last week, that it was a pistol he was supposed to have been threatening his houseboy with, yes?"
"Oh yes, yes! So, what is it now?"
"It's not bribery, and it's not a pistol. No, it's something else, something even worse than a pistol .... "
"O God, I love it! What is it this time?"
"No, it's not a pistol ... definitely not a pistol, but something else .... "
"Tell me, tell me! I can't stand it!"
"It was a, a ... well, I can not tell a lie. It was a .... samurai sword!"
You know that scene from "When Harry Met Sally," the one where Meg Ryan fakes an orgasm in a café? it was like that.
It's so nice to have an audience that appreciates good art.
When I went on the 328 I had one guy complaining to me that with one of the two packs out the cockpit temperature could get up to 25º C.! Brutal ....
(I remember the first time I leaned in to get a look at the cockpit of the new EC-155, leaning against the seat back cushion as I did so. When I backed out I realized that the arm of my shirt was now soaked in sweat from that cushion like a big, wet sponge. Eeewww!)
Another good one was listening to whining about having to squeeze the 328 into the NAF Base Port Harcourt, a tight fit at 5,300 feet long and 100 feet wide! I finally told this moaning German to get a life, to go take a look at Warri Airstrip some time, 700 x 18 meters or whatever that was.
That guy was ex-Lufthansa ... no idea how his career took the turn it did, to end up in the Center of Excrement with us, but something must have gone badly wrong there. He got kind of bored one day down at our hangar when he was on a day off, dressed in a tee shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. Then he went walkabout, wandering into the Police Air Wing hangar for want of anything better to do. The policeman on guard duty watched him wandering around, doing nothing about that until our man touched one of the derelict 222s there. Then the policeman pounced, arressing him!
I guess the CP was not happy, having to buy him back ....
Not long afterwards I came up with a new game, Touch the Helicopter. Points could only be scored by going into the PAW hangar and doing that, but not being arres/sed, of course, with more and more points being awarded for the less and less that you wore. Double points for no tee shirt, triple points for no shorts .... Max points could be scored by doing that naked, but I never found anyone who wanted to play the game with me.
Boredom was a constant threat in Lagos, and it gave rise to all sorts of odd behavior on the part of hot, bored, unhappy people working as subcontractors for Shell. The usual response was alcohol abuse and adultery, but I got bored with the one, and the other was not an option because of a very strict Catholic upbringing, one that taught me how to practice guilt without sex.
When our little friend the Scottish Dwarf was caught up in that sex scandal I used to swap notes with this rather clever young Nigerian woman who was in charge of our Shell terminal in Lagos. She was always good for a laugh that way, wanting to know what was going on "down the line," even when it was some obvious lie about those placed unjustly above us. (Who was below us, the Tea Lady? Well, her and the helicopter pilots, of course!)
One day, returning from a brutal day of four or even five sectors flown, there she was again, asking "What news on the Rialto?"
Something came over me then, so that I baited her with the Dwarf's unfolding drama. (What had started as some sort of semi-consensual sex scandal, bad enough in its way since the other party was his houseboy, not even the Tea Lady, had escalated weekly with the supposed use of bribery; threats of violence; actual violence; and even, last week, the supposed use of a pistol ... all just supposedly but never mind that now, because we were bored, and because we hated the Scottish Dwarf.)
So I said to my little partner in bitchery, "You remember last week, that it was a pistol he was supposed to have been threatening his houseboy with, yes?"
"Oh yes, yes! So, what is it now?"
"It's not bribery, and it's not a pistol. No, it's something else, something even worse than a pistol .... "
"O God, I love it! What is it this time?"
"No, it's not a pistol ... definitely not a pistol, but something else .... "
"Tell me, tell me! I can't stand it!"
"It was a, a ... well, I can not tell a lie. It was a .... samurai sword!"
You know that scene from "When Harry Met Sally," the one where Meg Ryan fakes an orgasm in a café? it was like that.
It's so nice to have an audience that appreciates good art.
Last edited by chuks; 10th Oct 2016 at 12:39.
I am not as stupid as I look....
Finally a statement by Chuks I can fully support!
Ol' Chuks does have a winning way with Germans.
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Oh, the Germans! I told one a joke once during a de-brief, a joke based on that old one about the "Curate's Egg," saying that my last approach had been "good in parts." Sort of like "Straight and level ... so which one do you want to see first?" except that he thought I meant it straight.
It went right over his square head, of course, and when the CP cleared his throat and said "I believe you may find that Captain [chuks] was making a joke there," the jerk went all Krakatoa on me, starting with "I know that iss a joke!" and going on from there, really losing his rag. I ended up wondering if I could make him fit out one of those funny little narrow windows in the briefing room if he did not stop "yabbing me" then, but I wandered off to drink a glass of water instead of ending up in a Dutch hoosegow.
It went right over his square head, of course, and when the CP cleared his throat and said "I believe you may find that Captain [chuks] was making a joke there," the jerk went all Krakatoa on me, starting with "I know that iss a joke!" and going on from there, really losing his rag. I ended up wondering if I could make him fit out one of those funny little narrow windows in the briefing room if he did not stop "yabbing me" then, but I wandered off to drink a glass of water instead of ending up in a Dutch hoosegow.