Ops-Normal.org

Alisoncc this is comfort practically airline first class. I managed to fell asleep on those canvas seats against the fuselage wall on a flying Charlie with people seating next to me.

Exactly, why were you in Darwin?

When the Metropolitan Police were sent to the Caribbean to sort out some dis-order on Anguilla, they were flown out from Fairford. They turned up well kitted out for the job in hand - respirators, batons, riot shields, golf clubs, fishing rods, scuba gear, etc. They were obviously expecting British Airways standard of comfort until they stepped on the aircraft; the look of horror and disbelief on their faces as they realised that sitting sideways for the next 13 hours or so was the best they were going to "enjoy" - something the Inspector in charge of the plod detachment remembered many years later when I bumped into him quite by chance during a fishing match.

4ma, plenty of leg room though.

Pontius Navigator wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 01, 2021 7:08 pm

4ma, plenty of leg room though.

I hope Ex-A doesn't read this post but I flew on the outfit he worked for about a two years before me flying on Fat Albert or Charlie as we call it. Ex- A's mob 757s were rather uncomfortable, a Corsair 747 rather better and the sideways sitting on Fat Albert just magnificent. It helped I wanted to experienced for several years before until I managed as part of me serving with the Air Force

Most comfortable flight was in the bunk on an E3, followed by a bunk in the wardroom on a Shackleton, and finally in a C5. Didn't get a bed in the bedroom as the next crew were sleeping but we had 3 seats each down the back.

Not very much leg room at all PN.

The aircraft was rammed full of their kit - it bulked out way before max payload. For some reason the Met Police preferred to use big wicker baskets instead of cardboard triwalls or aluminium lacons. They were a bugger to tie-down because as you were strapping down on one side, t'other popped up- t'was like a bloody see-saw.

All told, the freight compartment was virtually full to roof height and with so little space between the front of the seats and the load, the knees of the 40+ plod's on that deployment must have been touching the load. The ramp was fully loaded with their sausage kit bags, golf clubs etc, which were netted over so no room for a kip there either. There was barely space to lower the Elsan - reckon there must have been much clenching of buttocks by the time they got to where they were going.

Hated doing those Operation Sheepskin re-supply flights because they were always those 'kin wicker baskets. Op Spearhead (the first troop deployment into NI) was a much easier load-out.

Is this a farewell trip?

Some research shows it to be Royal Air Force Voyager ZZ332 - so possibly A2A refuelling tanker?

I only had one trip on a C-130 and that was a jolly on an RAF one as a civvie. A cameraman and I had been doing all the helicopter filming for "Juggernaut", a 1974 film with a liner in an Atlantic storm with bombs on board and ransom demands made. Mainly filmed in a force 6-8 off the Hebrides, we flew down to Lyneham and sat in the back of the Herc on the flight back to the ship. The plot being that bomb disposal experts would parachute into the sea and save the day. We stood on the ramp filming as the Herc did a low pass over the ship, the Herc was filmed from the ship as well, then it was back to Lyneham.

The parachutists shown leaving the Herc did so somewhere else, filmed by another camera team. The scene from the ship where the parachutists are approaching the ship was filmed in calmer waters off Penzance with a British Airways S61 helicopter dropping the Red Devils team from just under the cloudbase and with us filming them from our helicopter as well. It wasn't a particularly good film but it was a very enjoyable two weeks work.