16 Sqn at Laarbruch had ownership of XL616 as a hack in the early 1980’s or to give it it’s proper title ‘Sick-One-Sick’ as it was a frequent visitor into the hanger with some problem or other! At that time it was painted in the ‘Rasperry Ripple’ paint scheme suggesting that it was a former RAF Valley FTS aircraft.

As a former member of the ‘Poachers Groundcrew Flying Circus’ 75 – 76 the cracking photo of one of our aircraft has made me all nostalgic!

Well done to the submitter for make an not so old ‘f4rt’ feel 18 again!

:):):)

Cheers

BeefyBoy

John

The photo of the Cranwell line brings back so many memories over a 5 year period. The photo shows a nice line of about 30 aircraft which does not really relay to the viewer what was really involved in getting to such a scene.

Basically you needed 3 tractors with 3 liney’s along with 3 civvy MT drivers. The aircraft were kept in 2 old tin hangers which are out of view in the picture. It was always a competition between each shift to see how many aircraft you could get in a hanger, it was like a jigsaw puzzle. A real job getting them out as the wings were all interlinked.

When the line flight line was complete after much twisting and moving by tractor out of the hangers it became a hive of activity. The flying started around 08:00hrs and each wave was seen off by a shift of around 12 liney’s and on their return the staff reverted into refuelling, oxygen and gases, and turn around teams. In the summer we were issued with old tropical issue shorts and a daily ration of issue suntan and insect repelant cream from the medical centre courtesy of the station commander! We had old ‘Chief’s’ at that time who had been involved in Burma during WW2 at that time who knew about sunstroke. In the summer of 76 when as you will remember the temperature was in the 80’s most days. Add to that the reflected heat off the concrete on the flight line and it went up to about 90 degree’s. Some guys were dropping with sunstroke and were taken up to the medical centre. The old guys who had served in the far east and middle east got hold of some old white bed sheets which they cut into strips and we had to wet them and put them around our necks. They were kept wet by the guy who washed the flies of the windscreens using his water spray. This seemed to work and if you went down because of the heat it ended up by you being taken onto the grass and having a bucket of water poured slowly over your head! Winter of course was different, you just froze to death and warmed up standing near the jet pipe. How things change with the H&S act!:D

Oh how I long for those days!

BeefyBoy aka George Dobie

It’s a Mk4 from RAF Brawdy. Location could be RAF Chivenor or Brawdy.

Very nice, but what about the original (ish). The famous 16 Sqn ‘Black Bucc’ at Laarbruch in 1993. It lasted about 2 days until a ‘Big Hat’ at Rheindhalen saw it flying over. It was hand painted by the aircrew and liney’s.

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/picture.php?albumid=170&pictureid=1100

After much searching over a couple of years and having a negative reply from Corgi I have finally found a website – diecastairplane.com which is bring out a Mk5 1:72 model. 😀

I have just pre-ordered one as they are expected out in June. With international postage it came to $55 which I have converted to about £38 ish.

This is probably cheaper than Corgi if they ever brought one out. I did contact them and they have no plans to produce one. 😡

The aircraft model is shown as XW289

Cheers

BB

I was at Lyneham when the Comet arrived on the back of large lorry, 1987 -‘ish’ if I remember rightly. When it was assembled the station used it as a project whereby any non technical personel i.e. clerical, catering, suppliers etc could have a go at putting it together under supervision.

Quite a few volunteered and it was completed in good time. It was then towed across the sports fields on steel planking by the Royal Engineers into it’s present position.

Don’t know if it was true or just instructor b*llsh*t but we were told on our mechanics course at RAF Halton in 1973 that the white Vulcan that we were being shown around had been used in Thunderball.