RAF Memories

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RAF Memories

#1 Post by ricardian » Tue Apr 09, 2019 6:54 pm

(Seen on Farcebook)

I wonder how many ex-RAF members of advanced years can relate to this?

• When obscure form numbers like - 1369, 6442 and 252 could mean career-changing moments.
• When bizarre uniform items such as the thunderbird jacket and the flasher mac
• When the glorious anonymity of JTs, SACs and LACs before they introduced rank slides for airmen
• When colleagues were posted to RAF stations that nobody knew existed (i.e. ‘Machrihanish? Never heard of it – are you sure it’s not a wind-up?’)
• When the ’back of the bike sheds’ was considered an appropriate location for career counselling.
• When wearing medals was considered the particular right of the lucky few silver jubilee recipients or the handful from the South Atlantic.
• When OOA tours meant 4 months limited to communication by ambiguous means such as ASMA, the bluey or a cable and wireless phone card.
• When the question ‘Where the hell is Decimomannu?’ at least stood a remote chance of being answered.
• When crewrooms were occupied and people partook of unintelligible games like Uckers and ‘Hunt’
• When an RAF aircraft recognition poster was larger than A4 size
• When you remember curious anomalies such as male only stations (eg Wattisham)
• When anything Soviet was ‘bad’ and anything NATO was ‘good’
• When you drove around with BFG plates
• When you witnessed a survival scramble or spent some time in an HPS.
• When QRA that involved ‘instant sunshine’ and the ‘two-man principle’ in the ‘no-lone zone’
• When your NBC suit came with a detachable hood.
• When being issued with DPM kit seemed quite exciting.
• When Friday lunchtime (afternoon) was spent in the pub (in uniform)
• When doughnuts on day 3 or 4 of an exercise had particular significance
• When ‘AOC’s’ meant an enormous parade (and if you were lucky enough to be at Lossie, repeated 3 times)
• When some lucky people had the pleasure of being recruited as FLMs and TAGs.
• When you had access to a variety of personal weapons that seemed to have come out of Battle Picture Library (303, SLR, SMG etc)
• When you got 3 x Get you home (where-ever home was that day) a year.
• Baby's heads
• Being scared of rock apes
• Seeing plumbers running and thinking "hope it's the NAAFI wagon"
• Seeing aircrew running, and KNOWING it was the NAAFI wagon!!
• Itchy blankets
• Cheap beer in a busy NAFFI
• When MT had fleets of British built vehicles
• Wearing Gas Masks for hours at a time
• When an MoD civilian being a very rare breed indeed
• Blue uniforms
• When RAF push bikes had the basket on the front.
• Mod Plods
• Stations without fences
• Doing Fire Bucket
• The tiniest sliding windows in Guardrooms
• Tin Helmets
• When your whole world could be put into a couple of scrawny lockers.
• When only TG1 and TG2 were on the high payband
• Pickaxe handles to fight off the Commies
• Singing in the bar
• SACWs who could write backwards on glass walls
• Thinking SAMA was neat 'cause it could tell you your leave balance
• Starting night shift at 4pm, finishing at 8pm.
• Starting night shift at 4pm, finishing at 8am!
• Having the choice between a tech charge and a 'quiet word' with the FS
• Station Workshops who could make anything for a crate of beer.
• The knowledge that we really were defending the country
Ricardian, Stronsay, Orkney UK
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Re: RAF Memories

#2 Post by ExSp33db1rd » Tue Apr 09, 2019 10:57 pm

RAF Memories.
When obscure form numbers like - 1369, 6442 and 252 could mean career-changing moments.
1250 ?
When the ’back of the bike sheds’ was considered an appropriate location for career counselling.
Pre-RAF usually had another meaning for me ! ( being not to far from the local girls College )

I was one of 12 selected from an OTU course of 30 ( ish ? ) to be sent to Canada for flying training as part of the UK commitment to participate in the Canadian "offer" to train pilots from the various - at the time - NATO Countries. The RAF had no need to participate, having ample flying school capability themselves, but had to conform to the agreement. Cannon Fodder ?

Question - Did they send the best 12 from the group of 30, to prove to the other nations that the RAF had the best pilots in the World ( or at least within NATO ) or send the worst so that the RAF didn't have to put up with us ?

Answers on the back of a 2d stamp.

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Re: RAF Memories

#3 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Tue Apr 09, 2019 11:51 pm

I can relate to almost all of that. I had an issued bike with a basket!

Two pilots from my IoT were sent to the US for their pilot training on a similar deal. They picked the two most socially polished. Both graduated with US fast jet wings, then on their return to UK they started a brief 20 hr course at Valley known as the 'This is a cloud' course, as they had trained in Texas. It morphed immediately into a 60 hr course which was then known as the "This is a decision' course ;))) Valley was only 85 hours long for normal UK FJ stream. Both ended up being sent Multi Engine, I think (I know one did for sure, as he was on my IoT flight).

Similar memories from the airborne side:
Descending into the Mess kitchens at RAF Gibraltar on a 2am food raid, down a rope from the skylight, having been drinking till then. The guy leading the raid was Harry Staish.
"We aren't really allowed to do Night Aeros any more..here's my sequence"
Queen's Regulation #1 - Don't get caught.
Mounting a silent procedures CAP on exercise as part of one of several 16 ships, with AWACS reporting over 300 inbound Red Air.
Flying low over the Moehne Dam, then being told afterwards we shouldn't have. For some reason they always forgot to tell you beforehand.
Seeing our French DACT opponents for the afternoon sharing a bottle of wine at lunch "Well, we are going to lose anyway", said one with a Gallic shrug.
Flying with guys who had bombed Berlin.
Drawing up maps all day for one country after another in order to try and find suitable weather for low level flying, and finally departing for the fourth one at 3 in the afternoon.
Do night lights-out visual idents using the Mk 1 eyeball.
Drinking all night on the bar book of a guy who was never coming home.
Flying at about 100 ft over the foredeck of a Russian warship in close formation.
Piano burnings, various.
Having a 100% pass mark on recognition tests. In fact having a 100% pass mark on an awful lot of things.
Watching the intakes gradually ice up to the point where we couldn't maintain height. And having four guys below you in the stack in the same situation.
Having a Yank Colonel say "If you guys had our airplanes, we'd still be a colony".

Sisemen

Re: RAF Memories

#4 Post by Sisemen » Wed Apr 10, 2019 1:48 am

Getting the WRAF with the thinnest wrists to pass the tube through the grill on the closed NAAFI bar and attaching it to the the beer pump and switching it on.

Me Chief? No Chief. I left the party earlier. Can’t remember who was there Chief.

Then, after commissioning, getting the WRAF with the thinnest wrists ..... :D

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Re: RAF Memories

#5 Post by Alisoncc » Wed Apr 10, 2019 5:31 am

After an all-night shift on QRA crowding into a land rover, a dozen or so with some riding on the armourers bomb trailer if more, for the trip to the mess. Stinking of hydraulic fluid or glycol from the ECM cans. In the mess a table set aside for us, where we were served by the kitchen staff with tray after tray of eggs, bacon, sausages, baked beans, toast, etc. etc. delivered to our table, and a big aluminium kettle of freshly brewed tea. Whilst an OCU, during a "Mickey" we were classified as a fully operational Vulcan station, and us linies were treated as ground crew royalty.

Winters evening, standing in middle of perimeter track waving wands around marshalling a Vulcan onto it's pan. When the crew chief comes racing across screaming at the top of his voice. Just in time to alert me to an Anson going like a bat out of hell heading straight for me, some senior zob trying to make happy hour at the officers mess. Just one of the many occasions when I came close to being deaded.

Someone previously mentioned bang seats killing more ground crew than all aircrew lives saved. Odds are that the bulk of the ground crew would have been instruments, electricians and radio techs, as they were the ones most likely to have been scrabbling around in a cockpit with the seat armed. Once a US air force Phantom lobbed into Sharjah with a sticky R/T button. None of their supporting crew were there, never seen one before and no idea if the safety pins were inserted, but an expectation I was going to fix the R/T button problem. I prodded around some connectors at the base of the stick, seemed to fix it, and got out fast. Scary, you bet you're.

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Re: RAF Memories

#6 Post by ian16th » Wed Apr 10, 2019 8:19 am

RAF Form numbers engraved on brain?

F295 a Leave Pass.

As mentioned F1250, we all had one.
I managed 13 years with just the one! But I cheated. The last Change of Rank space was taken up with Cpl/Tech and for my last few months, from April 1st 1964, I was a Cpl again.

One from Stores that I remember is 664B, but I can't remember what it was for.

As for maximising the use of the 3 free rail warrants a year, a whole new thread could be written.
Is there a Statute of Limitations on fiddling British Rail?
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Re: RAF Memories

#7 Post by izod tester » Wed Apr 10, 2019 8:40 am

"OOA tours of 4 months". I remember when Gan and Masirah were 13 months. No ASMA then either.

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Re: RAF Memories

#8 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Wed Apr 10, 2019 2:36 pm

Oddly enough, I have certificate # 1250 for reaching the Top of the Rock at Gibraltar.

F414 is the Pilot's Log Book

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Re: RAF Memories

#9 Post by ian16th » Wed Apr 10, 2019 3:21 pm

F700.

Edited to add:

Was the F700 the most important document in the RAF?
Groundcrew who signed or over-signed it, were liable to trial by Courts Martial.
Captain's signed it accepting the a/c.

The happy moment: When the last a/c of night flying landed at Oh Dark Thirty, and the skipper filled in the 700 with that one magic word; Satisfactory!
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Re: RAF Memories

#10 Post by ian16th » Wed Apr 10, 2019 3:33 pm

Fox3WheresMyBanana wrote:
Wed Apr 10, 2019 2:36 pm
Oddly enough, I have certificate # 1250 for reaching the Top of the Rock at Gibraltar.

F414 is the Pilot's Log Book
I once organised a local pay-as-you-go cell phone for a visitor from the UK.
I had set it up with a pin of 1250.
My visitor, a former Locking App, responded with; 'that's easy to remember'.
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Re: RAF Memories

#11 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Wed Apr 10, 2019 4:00 pm

I picked up some new Tornados from Warton. The form to be signed was a BAe one, not a F700, and on enquiring I discovered that I personally was signing for the jet, not on behalf of the RAF. Since my worldly wealth was somewhat less than £20,000,000 (plus VAT, I suppose), I faked my own signature and decided I had better hitch-hike away from any survivable crash site and start a new life abroad.

For serviceability on the Tornado, we made a call to the company frequency 5 minutes before landing, so the ginger beers would have some idea what to expect. 'X' was serviceable, then there were 15 system areas for which 'Y' or 'Z' could be used. 'Y' was 'Dodgy', but the jet was serviceable for most sorties, 'Z' was unserviceable. I recall 'Zulu 10' was very common in the early days = duff radar. On one later shakedown flight after the jet had been in the shed for months, I had to call in "Zulu everything". It was not a well aeroplane. I think I landed off a single engine-ish (idle on one) flapless approach, with no thrust reverse available (in fact it was already indicating deployed, but obviously wasn't or we would have been flying sideways).

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Re: RAF Memories

#12 Post by 4mastacker » Wed Apr 10, 2019 4:01 pm

ian16th wrote:
Wed Apr 10, 2019 8:19 am
................One from Stores that I remember is 664B, but I can't remember what it was for................
Repayment voucher. Raised when someone had lost/damaged a pair of socks......or an IFF transponder control unit. That caused a few urgent phonecalls.
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Re: RAF Memories

#13 Post by Pontius Navigator » Wed Apr 10, 2019 5:05 pm

Stranraer 2501 ext 76 a GPO call via the RAF Operator

It went "yes" in a refined western Scottish female accent.

"76"

" Yes? "

"NRU 74, target 12, 2 Hotel, 1020 , confirm"

"This is Stranraer 2502"

I don't know who she was, how many calls she took, what she thought, but I know she must have fielded dozens of calls.

These were for simulated nuclear pop up attacks on the RAE test range at RAE West Freugh.

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Re: RAF Memories

#14 Post by Pontius Navigator » Wed Apr 10, 2019 5:10 pm

Or the brilliant scheme where each bomber station had the same PBX phone numbers for the same function on each station.

IIRC Ops was 301/302 with the Ops O 437. Photographic and MT Control were the others we all needed. Then sqns 1, 2, and 3 each had the same corresponding numbers.

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Re: RAF Memories

#15 Post by Pontius Navigator » Wed Apr 10, 2019 5:13 pm

Or the AP bibles, so much easier than the later coded ones:

129, 1234 becoming 3456
3184 becoming JSP 101

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Re: RAF Memories

#16 Post by 4mastacker » Wed Apr 10, 2019 6:26 pm

The old blue serge uniforms which smelt like dog's pee if they got wet in the rain.

The hairy No1s issued to BEs/Apps.
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Re: RAF Memories

#17 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Wed Apr 10, 2019 6:37 pm

AP 3456 can be downloaded from here
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ ... ng-1182172

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Re: RAF Memories

#18 Post by Pontius Navigator » Wed Apr 10, 2019 7:10 pm

How about clothing allowance?

If an airman didn't use it all he could claim the cash.

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Re: RAF Memories

#19 Post by 4mastacker » Wed Apr 10, 2019 8:30 pm

F34 for Write Offs. The cause of much staff work for officers before approval. Depending on the amount some could be approved on-station. However, there were some outside the station's powers which went all the way up to the top (2nd PUS level) and that's when the really searching questions came cascading down - like a lorry load of Firestreak missiles on a hill near Binbrook.
How about clothing allowance?

If an airman didn't use it all he could claim the cash.
I think it covered a pair of shoes and a shirt (sans collar)and that was about it. IIRC, if you wanted/needed a new No 1 or No 2 before your current one was 3 years old then you had to pay.
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Re: RAF Memories

#20 Post by ian16th » Wed Apr 10, 2019 8:37 pm

Pontius Navigator wrote:
Wed Apr 10, 2019 7:10 pm
How about clothing allowance?

If an airman didn't use it all he could claim the cash.
But if he spent it, his pay was stopped!

A problem with 1st year Boys & Apps. A new blue was more than a quarters clothing allowance, so pay was stopped.

Seeing as a weeks pay was only 10/-, a stoppage went on for a few weeks.

Cue old joke:
A particular B/E having his pay stopped and only drawing 2/6 a week for several weeks, the Paying Officer reprimanded him for an unenthusiastic salute.

Retort from very p*ssed off B/E; "What do you expect for 2/6, a bl**dy march past?"
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