NCO Aircrew

thanks for such a detailed insight! sounds great

Day in the life of a loadie at Shawbury in the late ’80s….
07:55 Test of station crash alarm wakes you up, rollout of bed into boots and gro-bag placed next to bed, sprint to Sqn Crew Room.

08:00 Morning Prayers, (ops & Met brief)
08:30 check roster and speak to first hop’s Captain about flight.
08:45 Briefing with Instructor on flight profile
09:00 over to Station Ops to make map, check Notams, plot route and obtain detailed Met (Captain returns to Mess for light Breakfast)
10:00 Check which aircraft you will be using and go through Form 700 for Green, Amber and Red lines (defects)
11:00 Pre-flight Briefing, I outline route, Initial Points (IPs) and confined areas brief. I also outline aircraft defects
11:30 I go out to the aircraft to start External pre-flight (Captain has coffee and Gauloise)
12:00 Internal Pre-flight and Cabin Prep
12:15 Captain comes out to the aircraft, kicks the tyres and straps in.
12:30 20 mins of pre-start checks, I check that Captain carries out checks correctly, then we light the fires.

13:00 lift off! off we go for a jolly good wheeze around Shropshire, picking up Concrete blocks from one woodland clearing and dropping them in others, I have to talk the captain in and out of the confined areas whilst managing the load

14:00 Land, I stand out the front, whilst the Captain slows the Rotor head, watching that the stops go in.
14:10 Captain returns to the Crewroom for a Coffee and Gauloise, I put the covers on and tidy up the aircraft
14:30 return to Ops to discuss the defects with Ground crew
14:45 Return to Crew room for large Coffee and sandwich…

That about sums it up!

To get some idea of the job, watch ‘Seaside Rescue’ the Coastguard Winch op is a Loadie, the lingo is slightly different to the RAF, but the concept is the same.

There are a couple of other ex-or current Loadies on forum as well.
Basically there were 3 main roles for the Air Loadmaster, Fixed wing Passenger (Chief Steward on VC10s), Fixed Wing Cargo (Hercs, Strategic-long distance, Tactical -low level hurling stuff out the back) and Rotary Wing.

All NCO Aircrew go through the same basic training and then get streamed into trades, so as a direct entrant you would do the same basic training as techies, blanket stackers and rock-apes, then you go to Airman Aircrew Initial Training (Essentially the Cranwell Officer course condensed into 7 weeks), and then onto trade Groundschool (Air Engineers, Air Electronics Operators and ALMs).

In my day it was 12 weeks Loadie Groundschool finishing with 14 exams, which covered weight & balance, PoF, in flight Catering and a practical exam, loading and tieing down cargo into the Herc Mock up (all in balance of course!)

After that we were streamed onto Fixed & Rotary, I was chosen for Rotary, and there followed another 8 weeks of Groundschool to learn Rotary PoF, Operations and the base elements of Nav and technical, as the Rotary ALM also does the Air Engineer’s role and Navigation.

You Finally get posted to 2FTS at Shawbury, and we had, wait for it, another session of Ground school to learn the Wessex systems, before finally we actually get to clambour into an aircraft!

The loadie is principally responsible for all cargo/passengers and the operation of the cabin. he is also responsible for mmanaging the secondary actions of all emergencies and ensuring that the Captain maneuvures the aircraft within clearances. He also acts as eyes and ears of the Captain and will ‘fly’ the aircraft on voice command into confined areas, picking up loads, etc.

It was an interesting and challenging job, I didn’t quite qualify, as my penchant for being a wayward 20 year old clouded my reasonable technical ability….