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At RAF St Mawgan in 1962 we had just seen a Mark 3 Shackleton in from 201 Squadron that had been on one of those long 12 hour maritime patrols and during the flight the reduction gear on number 3 engine to the propeller failed. When the aircrew were discussing this with us on site, the Air Engineer swung one of the contra rotating props to show how the gear had sheared, the following prop blade came down and cracked the co-pilot on the head. Fortunately no damage was done except to the pilots pride, the rest of us were in stitches! 

 

In December 1959 at Kia Tak in Hong Kong we had an almighty Mag drop on the No. three engine of our old Sunderland flying boat. As we were detached there we had no spares to talk of and the crew wanted to get back to Singapore so the skipper said if we lightened the aircraft as much as we could he would risk the take off. We went to work with a will and soon had everything off loaded. Some one shouted down the Galley stair that there was one more item so we waited. A while later down came the Engine Sgt. with a five gallon can, when asked what was in it he told us he had emptied the Glycol tank and that must have lightened the aircraft by 40 or 50 lbs. When one of the chaps was about to pass the drum of Glycol out the Galley hatch this Engine Sgt. said no put it in the bomb bay we might need it on the flight back. Never could work that one out he might as well have left it in the tank. We took off ok and got to about 1000 ft. when we hit an air pocket or a downdraft as they say these days. I was stood in the galley and I remember my feet were off the deck, I looked into the bomb bay where one of the crew was floating about a Scottish lad with a look of terror on his face. We hit the air again and ended up in a heap on the deck I looked to see if the Scotty lad was ok just in time to see him heave his washer up into the ration box. He was pigular as popshit one might say as we had 14 hrs. of flying ahead of us and all the rations we could use was the tinned rubbish, no one wanted puked on Bacon and eggs. Good days all gone

 

1969 RAF Wattisham detachment to RAF Valley. The Armourers dropped a live  Red Top Air to Air missile on the deck whilst arming up a F3 Lightning, not written off though! Boy did we ever scatter! On the same detachment one of our jockeys locked on to a Jindivik pilotless aircraft instead of the drogue, the live missile was fired and the £100000 Jindivik was brought down in the Irish Sea.

 

Four of us were detailed to see off a USAF transport from the SASF pan at Negombo. The aircrew and one other guy, (travelling groundcrew fronted up). The groundcrew guy was a typical big-mouthed pillock, who told us he did'nt need any damn Limeys'  help. We sat on the ground and watched while he did everything himself, then with a John Wayne salute he ran across to the freight door as the aircraft started to move out. Sadly, he slipped while trying to clamber aboard, and was run over by the tailwheel! We curled up and applauded as his transport lumbered off the pan without him!  We approached his writhing body and asked if he'd like to repeat his one man show, as the rest of the guys in the crew room would love to learn from him!  The tower was informed and the kite had to return to the pan. It took off without him later in the day, and he spent some time in SSQ while his ribs were sorted out. Luckily for him there was no freight aboard, otherwise he'd have gone home in a box.!

 

For a period, whilst stationed at Waddington in the early 60's, I worked on tanker pool. We had 44, 50, 101Sqdns and 230OCU, all Vulcans, so we were kept busy as they were flying night and day around the clock. We used to refuel the tankers from a bulk installation, which was near to the dispersal where a squadron was always on QRA standby i.e. bombed up and ready to go to war. It was always a race to get back to tanker pool to continue our game of dommies so one night my mate and I were refuelling our tankers from bulk - we were both empty - so should have completed our loading at the same time. I heard my mate Pete start his tanker, crash it into gear and drive off out of the POL installation. How did he fill up that quick I thought. The next thing I heard was the POL storeman screaming for him to stop. The prat! instead of filling up in the normal way Pete had coupled up to the belly coupling, in this way you get it in faster, but it was strictly against all the rules. OK he could have got away with it, but he simply forgot to disconnect from bulk before pulling away. You guessed it - he pulled the belly coupling right out of the tanker and 2,500 gallons of avtur came pouring out - it was hilarious to see Pete trying to stop the flow by pushing his beret into the hole - he yelled for me to couple up my tanker to his and try to defuel him, but of course there wasn't time - I couldn't help him anyway because I was in a laughing fit to bust a gut. The poor POL storeman sh!t himself because he realized that he was for the high jump as well for allowing Pete to refuel through the belly coupling. The story doesn't end there though - The 2500 gallons of avtur ran down the peri track and flooded the QRA dispersal, thus the squadron on standby would have been prevented from start up should the need have arisen because of the fire risk. The Station Commander was not a happy chappie because he had to declare to Bomber Command HQ that his QRA squadron was grounded! At the subsequent "Do you wish to accept my punishment or apply for a court martial", Pete was fined two weeks pay (£15)
For some reason Pete was sent back to the MT Section to do RR's (Routine Runs - Rations, dustcart collections etc)

 

I recall my flight home to the UK in a Hastings aircraft that had departed RAF Changi and was attempting to land at Katunayake. The Hastings had a reserve crew on board, the pilot made three attempts at landing, aborted the first two and when finally landing on the third attempt, the crew stood up and clapped and cheered...!

 

The new Station Commander was assigned to RAF El Adem which is a remote post in the Libyan Desert. During his first inspection, he noticed a camel hitched up behind the mess tent. He asks the Flight Sergeant why the camel is kept there.

"Well, sir," is the nervous reply, "as you know, there are 600 men here and no women. And Sir, sometimes the men have ... mmm .... urges. That's why we have the camel, Sir."

The Group Captain says, "I can't say that I condone this, but I understand about urges, so the camel can stay."

About a month later, the Group Captain starts having a real problem with his own urges. Crazy with passion, he asks the Flight Sergeant to bring the camel to his tent. Putting a stool behind the camel, the Captain stands on it, pulls down his pants, and has wild, insane sex with the camel.

When he is done, he asks the Flight Sergeant, "Is that how the men do it?"

"Uh, no sir," the Flight Sergeant replies. "They usually just ride the camel into town where the girls are."

I was quite busy, trying to free a fuel jettison pipe, which had been left down on landing on a Sunderland Flying Boat. Not too difficult a job, on land, but this had to be done on the oggin. Fitted  out with the usual accoutrements, hacksaw tied to one wrist and file to the other, I jumped into the sea. I'd spent the best part of an hour, most of it underwater, sawing and then filing the offending object, when a voice said." Do you need any help"?

Looking down at me from the galley hatch, was a young, recently arrived Sergeant , whose name evades me: armourer as I recall. I intended to ask him to remove the free end of the pipe, from inside the aircraft, whilst I carried out any adjustment from under the hull. I answered him with. " Yes I would thanks".  My surprise, as he stripped off his shirt and jumped into the water, quickly turned to laughter as he was swept past me by the ten knot current, arms waving lips shouting some obscenity. 

He hadn't noticed that I was secured to the aircraft by a rope, but was rescued within minutes by the bomb scow. I don't think he ever spoke to me again, or repeated his experience to many.

 

One of the most heart warming incidents occurred when I had to drive the AOC in C FEAF from the Officers Mess at Katunayake to the UK High Commissioners residence in Colombo. The Humber Super Snipe was a dream machine in those days and no one under the rank of Air Marshal had the privilege to ride in it.

 

On the afternoon in question it was literally peeing down when I picked him up and as we approached the guardroom to leave camp, there was the DAPM in all his glory standing under the canopy ready to throw up one nice salute as I cruised by. Unfortunately before leaving the camp I would have to stop, get out and remove the pennant from the front of the bonnet and cover up the star plates on the front and rear bumpers. Sh!t, I thought, I am going to get bloody soaked. I heard the all but inaudible hiss from behind me as the AOC lowered the partition window between driver and back seat, “Sit tight driver” he says and waves over the DAPM gesticulating to him to remove the flag from the front of the car. The DAPM ran through the rain and rapidly removed the flag, but found great difficulty, as we all did, in replacing the finial back on the flag post. As he handed me the pennant through my partially open window I then handed him the canvas covers for the star plates – if looks could kill! I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall and heard what he said to his sergeant and two corporals who had been standing under the guardroom canopy with him. It probably made their day as well.

 

 

Gary Cooper in conversation with a VIP Hastings pilot flying the C-in-C FEAF in 1953 reports on a similar theme where the C-in-C's pennant was aloft the cockpit of WJ325, the aircraft had taken off with the pennant in situ, it wasn't until sometime later that a crew member reported to the pilot that the pennant was still flying, the pilot throttled back on the engines as much as he dare to avoid stalling to retrieve said flag! 

 

I was a brand spanking new rigger on flying boats. Not long qualified and proud of the job I had just finished:  refurbishing the "bog" on a Sunderland.  I'd removed it, stripped it down, cleaned, repaired, replaced parts and replaced it and was watching it taxying away from the slipway.


After about a hundred yards, - no metres in those days - it turned round headed back to the slipway, the Flight Engineer waving wildly and calling for beaching gear.  I'd only forgot to put the olives back in the pipe connections hadn't I and the " Kite" was leaking like a sieve. Good job that story didn't follow me over to Seletar, or I'd have been called  "Olive"  for much longer than I was.

 

Late 1950's, China Bay, Ceylon. Sunderland Flying Boat Detachment.

 

An aircrew sergeant had acquired a small, furry four-footed creature as a pet. Nobody could identify it. Bit like a mongoose I think. On the return flight from Ceylon to base in Singapore the animal escaped and disappeared. At Squadron HQ the aircraft captain wrote, under 'Action Required', in the aircraft logbook, 'Something loose in the bilges.' 

The rigger detailed to check the aircraft carried out an investigation and wrote in the  'Action Taken' section, 'Something tightened in the bilges.'

 

The Boat Race

The Queens Flight (TQF) RAF Benson and 24 Squadron RAF Abingdon decided to have a competitive boat race on the River Thames. Both teams practiced hard and long to reach their peak performance. On the big day, they were as ready as they could be. The Abingdon team won by a mile.
Afterwards, the Benson team became discouraged by the loss and their morale sagged. TQF decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found. A Continuous Measurable Improvement Team of Executive Officers was set up to investigate the problem and to recommend appropriate corrective action.
Their conclusion: The problem was that the TQF Benson team had 1 person rowing and 8 people steering, whereas the Abingdon team had 8 persons rowing and 1 person steering. The Executive Officers Steering Committee immediately hired a consulting firm to do a study on the management structure.
After some time and billions of pounds, the consulting firm concluded that "too many people were steering and not enough rowing." To prevent losing to the Abingdon team again next year, the management structure was changed to "4 Steering Officers, 3 Area Steering Officers, and 1 Steering Wing Commander" and a new performance system for the person rowing the boat to give more incentive to work harder and become a star performer.
The next year the Abingdon team won by two miles.
The Queens Flight Steering Committee laid off the rower for poor performance, sold all of the oars, cancelled all leave, called for new equipment, halted development of a new canoe, awarded high performance awards to the consulting firm, and distributed medals, promotions and knighthoods on the money saved as bonuses to the senior officers.