The Rest is History

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boing
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The Rest is History

#1 Post by boing » Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:32 pm

I am going to claim this little story is an experience in aviation because of the time, place and events. Certainly the place and events are relevant, the place Biggin Hill, the event my visit to the OASC (the Officer and Aircrew Selection Centre).

I had checked in at the OASC as instructed a little before 9 am. and I was taken to a rather sparse room containing a table, some chairs, a filing cabinet and two RAF officers, Flight Lieutenants, dressed in rather worn #1 dress. I suppose in their job as interviewers the uniforms did get a fair amount of wear. The single chair on the other side of the table was obviously intended for my eventual use. I remained standing until invited to be seated.

It transpired that the interviewers were really pleasant individuals and our chat about my schooling, my hobbies and interests, the sports I played etc. etc. went on for over an hour. They were particularly intrigued by the fact that I rebuilt motor-cycles and rode them in trials. Then about 10.30 one of the officers explained the procedure for the rest of the session. “Mr. Boing, the rest of our part of the interview will involve investigating your mechanical knowledge and particularly your knowledge of aviation. As the first step we are going to give you a mechanical cross-section drawing of a mechanism that could be used in an aircraft. We will leave you alone in the room for 30 minutes and when we return you can explain what you think the mechanism could be used for.”

He slid a single sheet of paper across the table which held a, I believe it was called “roneo-de” in those days, drawing. I looked at it for about 5 seconds and informed him that it was a fuel injector nozzle, probably for an aircraft piston engine.

There was a stunned silence. Along with the stunned silence came an uncomfortable feeling in the room. “How did you know that?” “Well it is pretty obvious really, look at the spring, the cavities, drone, drone, etc.” It was at this time I suspected why I had made a dreadful mistake. It was 10.30 am., we had been talking since 9 am. And these two both probably normally took a cigarette and tea break while their victim sweated over the drawing. I had just ruined their cigarette break!

Now we take our break while I confess my secret. The secret was a slim blue volume called “The Pictorial Encyclopeadia of Scientific Knowledge”. I guess I was about 18 years old at the time of the interview, this volume had stayed at my bedside since I was 10 years old and I read it almost nightly. It was the most marvellous collection of science facts and illustrations one could ever imagine and I spent hours looking at the aircraft/engines section and the mechanics section.

So that I do not be considered crazy here are some comments I found from other readers.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reviewer: PMcD999 - favoritefavoritefavoritefavoritefavorite - September 29, 2019
Subject: Implanted images from childhood.
Way back in 1962 - 63 I looked through this encyclopaedia and was fascinated by the pictures and graphs. Those images have been with me all my life and having recently searched on the internet for this encyclopaedia and others in this series. I am amazed at the myriad of times that those images have consciously and subconsciously helped me to view and understand this fascinating and wonderful world that we live on. Oh, how times and technology have changed and advanced.


L. Maupin
5.0 out of 5 starsINCREDIBLE
April 17, 2010
This is the kind of book I wish I had as a child I believe it is written for children but the subjects are deep enough

The pictures are incredible and I took about 20 so you could enjoy them as well As you can tell, this is an older book, printed in London, probably in the 1940's

Subjects covered include:
electrical engineering, cathode ray, concentrating energy, invisible magnetism, mechanical laws, birds and animals, curved mirrors, axle bearings, inertia, spreading sound, rain forests, heat laws, physiology, using energy, crystals, but even more than that.

There are so many subjects and pictures covered on the pages, it is amazing. It is so easy to understand..if I had read this as a kid I would be carrying it all round with me now..it is that easy to understand

I can say quite positively that this book changed my life in those 5 seconds it took to recognise the subject of the drawing. As one reviewer said it was a great source of general knowledge, it allowed me to hold semi-intelligent conversations on matters in which I had no practical experience. Why? Why? Do our children bury themselves in cell-phone games when they could be enjoyably gaining knowledge?

In any case, back to aviation. I had shown my knowledge (good) but I had made a social blunder (bad). Fortunately some little intuition tipped me off to my blunder. I blustered a little but I got by. “I am sure you Gentlemen have notes to make about the interview. I’m sorry I disrupted the timetable. I can easily sit here until you return if you wish.” The offer was accepted and as they say, “The Rest Is History.”

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Re: The Rest is History

#2 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Sat Nov 16, 2019 12:15 am

Very interesting.

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dl ... 50/page/n3

I recommend the pdf download

My own passing of the Biggin Hill interview I think relied on the fact that I had read the entirety of WSC's 'History of the English Speaking Peoples' and 'The Second World War'. The former because I was chucked out of Art class in the Second Year, permanently, "because your drawing is crap. Go away."* -(which was completely accurate) and the library was next door. I picked a multivolume work because I realised I would be there the whole year at that hour. The latter because it was one of the few books my parents had.

There really is no substitute for in depth knowledge. Almost doesn't matter what, in depth is a knowledge format in itself.

*I note the current school Art curriculum claims "Pupils are given every encouragement to improve their ability". Yeah, right ;)))

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Re: The Rest is History

#3 Post by Sisemen » Sat Nov 16, 2019 2:06 am

The interview at OASC was designed to find out what opportunities were available to you and what you did with those opportunities. A couple of mandatory questions were thrown into the interview: involvement with the police, and involvement with drugs. Probably changed now and you’ll be chopped if you hadn’t had any involvement with drugs and trouble with the cops :D

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Re: The Rest is History

#4 Post by boing » Sat Nov 16, 2019 4:18 am

I think I actually attended OASC twice.

At this time the RAF was offering what was known as a "Special Flying Award". You attended OASC for part of the acceptance interviews and if you passed this phase the RAF paid for you to earn a private pilot's license at a nominated civilian flying training school, in my case Thruxton Airfield on the Jackeroo and Tiger Moth. At this point you were not committed to continue with pilot selection you could just say thank you and walk away..

However, on successful completion of the PPL you were invited to attend OASC for the balance of the selection. If you subsequently joined the RAF recovered a little of their investment because you were not required to complete Chipmunk flying training at South Cerney.

(Just checked and it appears the the Special Flying Award program was running into the early 2000's but somehow based at Cranwell)

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Re: The Rest is History

#5 Post by Boac » Sat Nov 16, 2019 10:16 am

boing - your description suggests one of the occifers was a friend, Daz James!

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Re: The Rest is History

#6 Post by Ex-Ascot » Sat Nov 16, 2019 4:52 pm

Did OASC three times just to get my money's worth. Also got the flying scholarship, at Cambridge in my case where I spent a month punting. Two qualifications in one. Then they let me lose on JPs. It was a disaster. The cabin service was appalling. Got them sorted out in the end. I mean if there isn't a little girlie with a cup of tea and saucer by your side it is not exactly a civilised flying job is it. Bet some of you are going to claim that you couldn't even have eggs cooked to order on board. Seriously, it is not on.
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Re: The Rest is History

#7 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Sat Nov 16, 2019 5:13 pm

I couldn't even get eggs cooked to order on board.

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Re: The Rest is History

#8 Post by Ex-Ascot » Sat Nov 16, 2019 5:29 pm

Fox3WheresMyBanana wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 5:13 pm
I couldn't even get eggs cooked to order on board.
Well Fox, that is because you were graded well beyond my ability. I needed a crew of about 10 to look after me and make sure that I didn't spill my tea.
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Re: The Rest is History

#9 Post by Pontius Navigator » Sat Nov 16, 2019 5:31 pm

Earlier the board was a sqn ldr and a wg cdr. I think the reason the uniforms were worn was they were retired and holding Retired Officer commission with pay abated as they also had pensions.

My daughter, as a regular flt lt, was posted on the provide someone more in tune with the recruits. In the job she have a higher position than the wg cdrs and eventually became overall president under a gp capt.

When I went through I had not heard of 'green light' but in retrospect it was when the wg cdr ribbed the sqn ldr for losing his luggage in Habbaniya, a
place I had never heard of, and which would have been very much in the news at the time of the threat against Kuwait. Being at school in those days, no TV, and paper only on a Sunday one's general knowledge was necessarily limited.

My next green light was staggering. One of the other applicants had a near impossible Brummie accent and almost impossible to understand. They asked my opinion of him in an officers mess. I gave some anodyne response.

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Re: The Rest is History

#10 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Sat Nov 16, 2019 5:41 pm

I needed a crew of about 10 to look after me and make sure that I didn't spill my tea.
Au contraire. No matter how many staff were allocated, I could never be trusted with tea*, so the only solution was to send me to an aircraft with no catering facilities at all.

*This was discovered on my first holding post as Tea Boy to a 2* at Support Command HQ. I strongly suspect assessing my tea-making potential was the real reason for the posting.

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Re: The Rest is History

#11 Post by G-CPTN » Sat Nov 16, 2019 8:19 pm

harking back to the first p*st and the encyclopedia, books were scarce in our house, although there was a set of Children's Encyclopedias and a 'War Illustrated' - a fully bound collection of newspaper articles about the First World War.
Image
As a result of which I became extremely familiar with the vehicles and equipment used during WWI - not a lot of use to a boy growing up just after the Second World War.
I guess I was always destined to follow my grandfather into engineering - I just loved investigating his workshop . . .

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Re: The Rest is History

#12 Post by ian16th » Sat Nov 16, 2019 9:49 pm

An oddity in my childhood home was a bound volume of the London Illustrated News, for the year 1929.

At the age of about 10, I was quite an expert on 1929!
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Re: The Rest is History

#13 Post by Hydromet » Sun Nov 17, 2019 6:12 am

When I was about 10, I was given a full set - 24 volumes - of a magazine style Outline of History, (supposedly) by H G Wells, from about 1930. At least, it was credited to him. I found it more interesting than any of the history my teachers tried unsuccessfully to teach me in high school. The most enduring memory from it, though, is a photo of the interior of a 'modern' airliner, with cane chairs!

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Re: The Rest is History

#14 Post by Sisemen » Sun Nov 17, 2019 6:32 am

Fox3WheresMyBanana wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 5:41 pm

Au contraire. No matter how many staff were allocated, I could never be trusted with tea*, so the only solution was to send me to an aircraft with no catering facilities at all.

Unfortunately, OASC discovered, early in the process, that I could make tea and "wouldn't make a pilot as long as I had a hole in my arse" (they were wrong about that :)) ), so it was the Admin Branch for me. And I did the course to see whether I could spot whether potential candidates for the RAF had tea making qualities. And then I went and trained them (they threw in a few potential aircrew to make it look good, but I was able to spot latent tea making abilities). I even got so good at making tea that, having done the course and gained my qtm* I was posted to MOD - the pinnacle of tea making.

* Qualified, Tea Making

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Re: The Rest is History

#15 Post by Ex-Ascot » Sun Nov 17, 2019 8:14 am

You can't make decent tea on an aircraft anyway as the water boils at 92 C. Also if you saw the state of the inside of the boilers on maintenance you wouldn't want to anyway.
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Re: The Rest is History

#16 Post by Pontius Navigator » Sun Nov 17, 2019 8:22 am

Had a flight in an RNoAF Sea King. Same water boiler as our Kipper Fleet except it had a keep hot function, better than having to wait. Great force coffee, didn't have a chance of tea but if it boiled it would be OK at their heights, about the same as a VC10 cockpit in the ground.

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Re: The Rest is History

#17 Post by k3k3 » Sun Nov 17, 2019 8:29 am

If you make a cup of tea in a Sea King is it "shaken, not stirred"?

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Re: The Rest is History

#18 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Sun Nov 17, 2019 11:39 am

"No Mr Bond, I expect you to drink it"

I was quite fortunate with that early holding post. After my very first tea making effort I was immediately demoted to ADC (Assistant, Deficient Catering). Then the Bossman's order to "Get him out of here as fast as possible" got passed imperfectly along the chain, as it so often does in Command HQs, through "Send him forth with great rapidity" to end up being signalled as "Post him fast jet", and the rest is history.

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Re: The Rest is History

#19 Post by Smeagol » Sun Nov 24, 2019 9:02 pm

Like others here, I attended OASC at Biggin Hill, more than once. First time for a 'Test in Advance' when I was about 16 and got recommended for a Special Flying Award, which I duly received and took up getting my PPL at Oxford Air Training School at Kidlington flying PA28s.
Next visit was a year or so later applying for a University Cadetship - got through the whole procedure but failed to get a scholarship. Third visit a year later and did the whole thing again - it was easier this time as I knew the procedure, and I got awarded a scholarship for General Duties BUT subject to passing a second medical as they thought they had detected a heart murmur. I duly travelled to the Central Medical Establishment in Cleveland St, London some weeks later for the medical at which it was decided that I did indeed have a heart murmur and that becoming a pilot was not going to be an option. I was offered a Cadetship in the Engineering Branch(I intended to study Engineering) but decided that if I could not fly I did not want to play in Her Majesty's air force, so became an engineer and ended up working in oil and gas for 40 years.
I found out later that the 'heart murmur' was something that I was born with, a bicuspid aortic valve, that was missed on my first two visits to OASC and not due to contracting Rheumatic Fever between the penultimate and final visits which was the medics diagnosis at the time. Correct diagnosis was confirmed by ultrasound scans which were not available in the 1960's. It has also never troubled me in the last 50 years despite being told I would probably need a replacement heart valve by the time I was 50. Fingers firmly crossed it will now see me my full term (whatever that may be) without the need for replacement.
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Re: The Rest is History

#20 Post by CharlieOneSix » Sun Nov 24, 2019 9:30 pm

I also attended what I think was called a Pre-Assessment OASC but at Hornchurch when I was 15. I passed everything except for the medical as my eyesight let me down so becoming an RAF pilot and following in my father’s footsteps was not an option. I soon found out that the RN accepted a lower standard of eyesight for helicopter pilots so I attended and passed the Admiralty Interview Board when I was 17 and.....the rest is history.
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