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3 weeks on Gan!! I got stuck there for 3 days when a Brit went tits-up and that was enough.....watching the ??Maldivians?? rowing back and forth and hoping for a diversion in full of airquartermattresses eventually loses its charm.

Why can't we delete things that go wrong?

Boac wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 12, 2019 12:54 pm

3 weeks on Gan!! I got stuck there for 3 days when a Brit went tits-up and that was enough.....watching the ??Maldivians?? rowing back and forth and hoping for a diversion in full of airquartermattresses eventually loses its charm.

We actually had some work to do, not a lot, but we did Primary * inspections on the 2 Valiant's that stayed there. Then there were air tests after the Primary *'s. The Master Tech i/c spread the work out so that we had something to do on as many days as it could be organised.
We even had a trip on an Air Sea Rescue Launch.
Otherwise it was snorkelling and Bridge!

I had a unique snag while there. In all of my 4+ years on Valiant's, it was the only time I had a blower motor, that cooled the Green Satin Tx/Rx go u/s.
Of course being a rare problem, we didn't carry a spare in our pack up. We had to beg assistance from the Gan Electronics Centre. Fortunately the Britannia's used the same one.

We had 2 weeks in '64 proving sport is dangerous. One nav rad fell on the volley ball court. Beautifully painted slip paint. Broke his fall though, both hands behind himself. Broke both wrists.

Amazing what you can't without wrists. You also find out who you second best friend is. A replacement was flown out from UK, only one arm in plaster.

"Why can't we delete things that go wrong?"

You can!

best was a compass corrector key.

!! Not too long ago had to "swing" a little bubble compass in a microlight, had to make my own adjustment screwdriver out of a bit of brass rod.

( also had to consult Google to remember what to do, and chalk cardinal points on the tarmac ! )

Yesterday, the BBC reported the 50th anniversary of the troops being sent to restore order in Northern Ireland. A much younger 4ma was doing an air movements tour at Fairford at the time (us stackers were a versatile lot- none of this separate trade guff that developed later on).

What had started out on the Friday lunch time as a quiet weekend for our shift - a couple of Changi slips and a returning Westabout - had completely changed by the time we actually started our shift in the late afternoon.

Normally there was one ops board in the DAMO's office showing flights in/out. This time, a whole corner of the passenger lounge was taken up by sheets of perspex showing all the extra taskings for the weekend.

From about 18.00 there was a flight due off chocks every 15 minutes. The first Army vehicles had left their assembly point at Devizes and were due at Fairford around 17.30 - they arrived about five minutes before chocks as they couldn't find the airfield! (What is it about Army officers with a map??)

All the initial loads were 2 x Landrovers and 2 x trailers plus occupants and we rapidly got into the routine of loading them and moving on to the next aircraft. After the initial hiccup, the aircraft were leaving fairly much on schedule and what goes out, comes back and by late evening we were re-loading and turning round the first wave of aircraft that had delivered their loads at Aldergrove. This went on for the whole weekend - non-stop. Food was brought down from the Airmens' mess as there was no opportunity for us to go to the mess; we were lucky to manage a visit to the porcelain throne. At one stage some of the shift were tasked to go with the aircraft to help with the off-loads at Aldergrove as the movements people there were being overwhelmed by the number of flights arriving. They were engines-running tactical off-loads - lower the ramps, vehicles off, ramps up and back to the runway.

We still had to deal with the load preps and loading of the Changi slips, and receiving the inbound Westabout, this on top of the Northern Ireland loads.

Come Monday morning, the oncoming shift was a very welcome sight. I skipped breakfast and went straight to bed after a shower and slept through until early evening - I have never felt so knackered.

And you couldn’t do THAT with a beard

Stackers still got around a bit in the 1980s. I worked for one on my little holding posting at Support Command. He had been the logistics guy for 1 Sqn in 1982. After some South American scrap metal dealers decided they needed a new source of supply, a few weeks later he found himself 8,000 miles from home on a landing craft heading in to a beach, with a submachine gun in hand and tin hat on, whilst some A4s used him for target practice. Fortunately, as far as he was concerned, they weren't very good. "There was no mention of this in the recruiting brochure"* he remembered thinking to himself.

* This was a common phrase du jour at the time for the little unexpected events one encountered, like being detailed for cleaning windows, or global thermonuclear combat.

When the Falklands episode was near to being sorted, the decision was made to create RAF Stanley on the airfield at Scampton. All the kit for a self sufficient station was assembled and packed into ISO containers for onward shipment down south - IIRC, the ship earmarked was the 'Contender Bezant' and sailed from Teeside. Why there and not the very much nearer Hull, was never explained.

The RAF must have stripped all of its stations to create the kitting for this new station, including an arrestor barrier from Barkston Heath. The airfield in front of the hangars was covered in ISO containers and I've never seen so much runway matting; it had to be rolled up and banded before going on its travels. There was kit for every section you would find on a normal station and it all went into discrete containers marked with whichever section the kit was destined for - the intention was that at the receiving end, the user section just had to locate their ISO and they had the kit they needed.


Tac Supply Wing was already in existence and on their way south with the Task Force when our dear friends in Handbrake House decided that they had to go tactical as well, as our OC Admin had now become OC Admin (designate) of RAF Stanley. It would be rude of me to denigrate the efforts of our TG17 colleagues in creating this new, sharp end formation but when they asked for an LPO for camouflaged pattern biros and document folders and a F6 for the paint shop to re-paint filing cabinets in IRR green one could not help but feel that there was a certain naivety at play.

Was in an Asian supermarket earlier, picked up a packet of chai masala teabags. As soon as I caught a whiff of one brewing I was transported to RAF Sharjah mid-afternoon fifty plus years ago when the Char Wallah did his circuit.

He had a yoke across his shoulders which supported two brass urns of tea with charcoal burners beneath to keep the tea hot. One with "normal" tea with condensed milk, and the other Chai, Indian spiced tea. Had visions of "It ain't 'alf 'hot Mum".

Smell is an immensely important sense. Many times have I been catapulted back 50 or 60 years or more by a certain smell.

Sisemen wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 14, 2019 2:32 pm

Smell is an immensely important sense. Many times have I been catapulted back 50 or 60 years or more by a certain smell.

Years ago a man walked up to our Lancaster, shut his eyes, breathed in, said he could still remember the aroma of hydraulic oil and vomit.

I bet Alison will remember the smell of burnt avtur, hydraulic fluid and urine.

Pontius Navigator wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 14, 2019 3:57 pm

I bet Alison will remember the smell of burnt avtur, hydraulic fluid and urine.

And the cooling fluid used in the ECM cans.

As Monty Python says “And now for something completely different”!
Fell across the following as I was musing over the PIA Airbus crash and thought it might provoke some happy memories for those who’ve squeezed themselves into this miniature pursuit ship;

https://gnatdisplayteam.org/the-honoura ... play-team/