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Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 1:13 pm
by Sisemen
CremeEgg wrote:
Tue Jul 17, 2018 12:42 pm
but where else would allow such wonderfully unPC remarks from amongst others the Thailand correspondent.
Slasher is Ops-Normal’s equivalent to a ‘national treasure’. Desperately un-PC but marvellously tolerated, nay, encouraged, by the very broad-minded admin :-bd

Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 1:21 pm
by Capetonian
Slasher is .... well .... Slasher.

Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 1:46 pm
by Ex-Ascot
VP welcome on board from reflectives in Botswana.

Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 6:16 pm
by VP959
admin wrote:
Mon Jul 16, 2018 7:45 am
Capetonian wrote:
Mon Jul 16, 2018 3:47 am
I'm afraid we have one here too, a certain Mr. Hill.
Cape I have it on the best of authority that John is not a troll.

Perhaps Mr VP could do us the courtesy of introducing himself - proper like. It's been an awfully long time since I was banned on TOP and have no recollection of his adventures there.

Admin/Alison
Right, here goes:

Started working life as a chemist, working for the UK Atomic Energy Authority, found I hated chemistry as a job so retrained as Flight test Scientist and worked for around 20 years, employed by MoD in various guises, doing all sorts of strange Cold War stuff mainly, both fixed and rotary wing. Got kicked upstairs into management in the early 1990's managed to stay flying in my first post as OiC as the pilots were contractors and they were one short on the contract, with no money spare to pay for another. I rang DFlying and asked if I could do the course so that I could sit in the right hand seat, he said yes, so I kept flying (and my flying pay) for another 5 years. I finally got shifted to run another two ranges where I had no chance of flying at all, so decided to build an aeroplane. I carried on flying as a private pilot for the next few years, until I finally quit flying when my good friend and flying partner succumbed to the Big C. I was lucky to keep getting promoted in my last years at work (handy when you're on an index-linked, final salary pension) and found myself coming to the end of my last three year tour (at the rather infamous Porton Down) right when David Cameron announced the austerity measures. I asked if I could go, they made me an offer I couldn't refuse, so I found myself retired at 57 on a full pension with a full gratuity.

TOP has been my way of staying in touch with aviating friends, but after several apparently random thread bans and a lot of excessive (IMHO) moderation, I found myself hankering for a place where the likes of Slasher were not only tolerated, but actively encouraged. Any forum with such an ethos seems eminently sound to me, and once I'd decoded the cryptic reference on TOP to this friendly seeming place, I decided to pop in and take a look. Lo and behold, it seems to be populated by familiar names, some of whom have been banned by the TOP, which has to be something of a badge of honour.

So, that's me, really. The username is a bit of a joke, as in the last post where I actually managed to do some flying as a part of the job, I arrived to find that in the small fleet of aircraft I was in charge of, one of them was a delightful gentleman's aerial carriage, with that unique cockpit smell that only old DeHavilland aircraft seem to have (and the weirdness of air operated brakes and a hydraulically operated windscreen wiper). The said aerial carriage was older than me, and still flown most days, and I will admit to having taken advantage of it as my personal air taxi for a while, to avoid the tedium of other means of transport down to the South of England from Scotland.

Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 7:40 pm
by om15
Seems like you will fit in very nicely, particularly with the impressive record of thread bans to your name, none of that goes on in here, so hope you soon feel at home.

Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2018 12:22 am
by Fox3WheresMyBanana
A delightful little bio!
I have VP981 in my log book, which I flew as co- when it was on BBMF. The smell is indeed marvellous, and I had the extreme pleasure of flying it to and from Scampton for the 50th anniversary of the Dambusters' little shindig.

Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2018 3:16 pm
by VP959
I've got both VP959 and XM223 in my logbook, both were a part of the same small fleet for a time. I'm pretty sure I did at least one passenger trip in XA880, too, when she was still running a "round robin" taxi service around the RAE airfields, before that got scrapped on cost grounds, and before I moved to Scotland in 1992.

Interesting story about the Devon and the lack of the balance tab on the port side of the elevator. It was told to me by one of the "old and bold" that as designed the elevators were the same on both sides, but during flight test there was a flutter problem. DeHavilland solved it by just cutting a lump off the end of the port elevator...

Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2018 9:00 pm
by Slasher
Welcome! :)

Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2018 9:23 pm
by Pontius Navigator
The one who shall remain nameless and whom VP refers is indeed a stalking gardinista pita. I don't have him on ignore but have resolved never to respond to any post at first hand. I have been
Waiting in vane for a relevant quote to appear which would allow response while preserving my facade of ignoring him.

Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Fri May 15, 2020 12:36 pm
by Capetonian
VP959 has been banned from Pprune, hopefully he may come back here.

https://www.pprune.org/jet-blast/632426 ... st10783299

Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Fri May 15, 2020 12:39 pm
by G-CPTN
Capetonian wrote:
Fri May 15, 2020 12:36 pm
VP959 has been banned from Pprune, hopefully he may come back here.
I really cannot imagine what could possibly have caused that.

Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Fri May 15, 2020 2:39 pm
by Pontius Navigator
G-CPTN, maybe they Mods thought he was getting too repetitive denying the usefulness of masks to the ignorant who do not know how to use them.

Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Fri May 15, 2020 2:49 pm
by G-CPTN
Ah - thanks - as the wearer of facial hair I know a mask would be pointless for me - and what about the eyes?
I believe that without proper eye protection those treating virus patients were doomed.

Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Fri May 15, 2020 3:12 pm
by TheGreenGoblin
Pontius Navigator wrote:
Sun Jul 22, 2018 9:23 pm
The one who shall remain nameless and whom VP refers is indeed a stalking gardinista pita. I don't have him on ignore but have resolved never to respond to any post at first hand. I have been
Waiting in vane for a relevant quote to appear which would allow response while preserving my facade of ignoring him.
There is nothing wrong with those who read the Guardian. Some of the best people I know read the Guardian! Hell, even I read the Guardian! =))

VP sounds like a reasonable cove and his love of the smell of the de Havilland aircraft is to be admired.

Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Fri May 15, 2020 10:37 pm
by FD2
I read through his entries on the Prune thread about capital punishment which seem to have got him banned and they were very well reasoned and reasonable. I hope he comes back on here. Their loss would be our gain.

Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Sat May 16, 2020 4:33 am
by ExSp33db1rd
.
.........even I read the Guardian!
I even get the Gruniad Weekly delivered to the Antipodes.

Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Sat May 16, 2020 10:11 am
by sidevalve
You mean direct to the nether regions??!

Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Sat May 16, 2020 10:36 am
by izod tester
VP959 has posted on TOP this morning. The capital punishment thread there has been closed.

Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Sat May 16, 2020 11:26 am
by Capetonian
T28B , 16th May 2020 01:07
You have all shown that you cannot behave when company comes over for dinner.
Thread closed.
How pathetic and cowardly of them, it did go a bit off track but I didn't see anything, although I didn't read by any means all of the posts, that would justify closing it or banning vp9 59

Re: VP959 has sought escape here...

Posted: Sat May 16, 2020 12:47 pm
by TheGreenGoblin
Who is the current Obersturmbannführer at TOP? I heard, or read here, that the previous vindictive incumbent was hors de combat?