>>what the hell is happening to our armed forces at the moment.<<

Try a load of fat greedy incompetent gits in London- the summat for nothing gang.

Cheers
Mad Jock

Ah June- July 73 anyone remember injection afternoon ‘You might feel a bit woozy after this!’ Or the Lightning on the airfield- XM170 with a total flight time of 14 minutes. The young ladies from Spitalgate?

Many years after leaving I met one of the Cpl DI’s, by this time a Flt Sgt, when I was doing orderly dog at Cranwell- we had a bit of a chat about old times during which he was most miffed to discover that someone a couple of ranks below was being paid more and would get a bigger pension at the end- oo er!

Great Days

Cheers
Madus Jockus

Dayglo sheet played an important part in the Vulcan fleet up to the formation of the squadrons in 1975 [ 1April if anyone is interested] Not only did 27 apply dayglo fin badges but 617 applied their lightning flashes in that way as well. Over at Waddo the only badge on the fins of the Wings Vulcans was a dayglo pig on the fin above the tail flash. While the crews were not bothered about this bit of decoration the Line SEngO used to go a bit bonkers about them now and again and insist they were removed- they were then sneakily replaced by smaller versions which grew as time passed. For those who looked at the photo of ‘595 on Andy’s site the penguin badge at the top of the fin is probably [ if memory serves] the badge of one of the Goose Bay teams.

One last dayglo sheet usage was that applied to XM608. At the 608 was a 50s aircraft and was loaned to 101s next door for a Ranger to Las Vegas. The crew chief[ name with held to protect the guilty] decided that he was not flying in a jet with a pair of sh*gg*ng dogs on the fin thus he commissioned the shift artist, a JT electrician to create a more appropriate badge. Two large circles of 3ft dayglo sheet later and some paint and 608 was adorned with a pair of Playboy bunny badges on the fin held in place with a good coat of varnish. For the modelling fraternity the green section on the wings leading edges- up to the front spar had recently been repainted. Unfortunately the paint had not been blended well therefore the green edges had a distinct blue tinge- a stark contrast to the normal grey and green.

Apologies for going on a bit but some of this might be of interest to someone.

Cheers
Madjock McGrok ex Line and 101s

>does anyone have any experience in dismantling a JP?<

easy peasy- spent 7 years at cranners taking them apart and putting them back together again- and they flew OK afterwards as well!

when I was playing with them at Halton on de old fitters course [shades of the JP5A at Cranwell in the future] I asked one of the instructors this same question and his reply was that as the JP4 had a bigger heavier engine fitted to a JP3 structure the stresses and strains of this engine had caused cracking in the engine bay area that hadn’t been accounted for by the stress guys also the training regime they had been put through had used up the fatigue life faster than expected. Both of these factors meant that although most of the JP4’s were not life expired the cost of repairing the fleet was not worthwhile.

In contrast when the wings of the JP5 fleet were found to be cracking [ although most appeared to be the stronger Strikemaster wings- JP5 owners look for pairs of big bolts under each wing} the 5FI programme was instituted. This required that access holes be drilled in the upper surface so that an endoscope could be used to inspect the structure. During this programme it was discovered that the wings of the JP5’s were shot therefore the aircraft with the lowest fatigue lives and the best condition wings had tip tanks fitted to become JP5B’s- in some cases good wings were swapped about to create the best option.

HTH
Cheers
Mad Jock

If memory serves our crews were briefed one WE177 and one target. Fuel load for this venture was 98% +8K in the bomb bay tanks. After departure we- the ground crew were deemed surplus as the odds of them coming back were extremely low even so we had to hang around just in case any had made it to their end run airfields- none in the UK. Of course this meant nothing as Waddington was supposed to be a smoking hole by then!

Even when the Blue Beasties were loaded there was a strange feeling about the aircraft- we knew it was a dummy even so the two man principle brought it home although due to shortage of bods it was observed more in the breach- its not the sort of thing taught at STCVSS

Cheers
Mad Jock

Les Bywaters RIP

It is my sad duty to inform all that Les Bywaters, fellow rigger Canberra nut, forumite and all round good bloke passed away on 13 January. His contributions to the forum as LesB will be sadly missed.

See you in the crewroom Les- get the tea’s in

MadusJockus

As I understand it the two K.1’s were painted pink as they were the only two of the 216 birds dedicated to operating as tankers in the Gulf while the others were mainly used on troop or freight duties including bringing back a pair of Arab stallions from Saudi after the conflict ended- and was there a stink about that one! When the fighting had ended 216 was allocated to bringing the troops home- the first major flight starting on red nose day- obviously such an occasion couldn’t be ignored so the five allocated aircraft duly had dayglo noses applied from dawn onwards- we managed to get a couple away before the SEngO came into work and put a stop to it!

Cheers
Mad Jock