Boris Force One

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ian16th
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Re: Boris Force One

#61 Post by ian16th » Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:41 am

Ex-Ascot wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 7:24 am
PN it was very much down to the Nav on the timing. He had to put us down to the second then it was up to the pilots. We marked off the taxi chart with where we had to be on the airfield at each minute to go. Nav would count us down. Obviously we needed to know where we were parking and in what direction we would be pointing. Takes 30 secs to turn a big jet gently through 180°. Then you have to line up the forward door with the red carpet. I had chinagraph marks on the DV window to line me up. BA once took I think HMQ to the States in Concorde, overshot the red carpet and had to be pushed back onto it =))
Yet another example of how the whole of the Air Force depended on chinagraph pencils.

Where would we have been without them?
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Re: Boris Force One

#62 Post by Ex-Ascot » Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:50 am

I do not know Ian. The whole of my ops room was chinagraph boards. Wall to wall. We had a holding officer for a year with a MA in IT. He couldn't write a program to beat them. My chief ops guy was a railway enthusiast all our slip patterns were based on up and down lines. Worked a treat. If we had a problem in the middle of the night I had to call him in though. He always wanted to get away from his wife anyway. 'Don't like day trips, I have to kiss the wife twice a day'. He was actually joking.
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Re: Boris Force One

#63 Post by Pontius Navigator » Wed Nov 18, 2020 9:01 am

EX-A, the V-Force even had a bombsight marked up with China graph.

We could have a whole thread on them I started with wooden ones, the shavings carefully stored in a pencil case (before we had paper cups). Then with plastic with clips, then flying suits with spring clips, then with a hole and cord.

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Re: Boris Force One

#64 Post by Pontius Navigator » Wed Nov 18, 2020 9:05 am

Ex-A, did you ever go into Tengah Ops when it was RAF. OC Ops, Mike Knight had it all in midnight blue, no lights, just desk lamps and UV lit perspex boards. Only white and yellow chinagraph.

When the Singaporeans took over they installed lights and turned the plush midnight blue carpet upside down.

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Re: Boris Force One

#65 Post by ian16th » Wed Nov 18, 2020 10:46 am

Couldn't have got a single a/c into the air without a chinagraph.

How would the names of the tradesmen been allocated to do the Pre-Flight?
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Re: Boris Force One

#66 Post by Pontius Navigator » Wed Nov 18, 2020 11:17 am

Funny though that the old lingo persisted - scrubbed as for chalk rather than wiped.

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Re: Boris Force One

#67 Post by Ex-Ascot » Tue May 18, 2021 12:33 pm

Refueling from Boris Force One. Yep the enemy will not spot that.
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Re: Boris Force One

#68 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue May 18, 2021 1:11 pm

Ex-Ascot wrote:
Tue May 18, 2021 12:33 pm
Refueling from Boris Force One. Yep the enemy will not spot that.
Makes Britain look ridiculous. I am ashamed and sorry for the poor pilots who have to be involved in this debacle. Better that Johnson is sent off to be a dictator in some banana republic.
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Your destination remains
Elusive."

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