as a fifteen year old air cadet, binbrook was my second annual camp in 1983.we were billeted in wooden single storey barrack blocks,not disimilar to those in the great escape.these were to be pulled down after us poor spacers had finished the summer camp.got on to flight line servicing for 2 days.this involved following an raf erk around the lightnings,checking everything was ok for flight,refueling,strapping in the crew,and then marshalling the aircraft from the stand.
on the friday i was in one of the squadron hangers helping to service several lightnings and change the ventral tank on one aircraft. finishing early in the afternoon the raf chaps i had been with then took me to the squadron bar and plied me 3 pints.off i went happy sandboy.i had been shooting,flying with a lightning pilot in a chipmonk and had been playing with lightnings for three days and was squiffy as well.what a fantastic experience.
i will never forget binbrook or the mighty lightning.
cheers karl

Were you in Beds & Cambs wing then? I was with 2484 Sqn (Bassingbourn) and went to Bin on summer camp mid August ’83 (according to my Logbook).
That was the week that half of our cadets went down with a stomach bug after drinking water from a stream, and one of the cadets thought that the way to reduce the kick from a 7.62 SLR was to hold it an inch from his shoulder….the shot went over the top of the range and hit a Policewoman a few miles away (apparently) and he got a dislocated shoulder!
I spent time with the Fire service (non-stop brake fires when the ‘chutes failed) and with 5 Sqn 3rd line servicing, removing the top engine from one which involved lots of wheel winding on the lifting bar as the engine is longer than the hatch….
‘Appy dayz

When I was stationed at Shawbury, I flew from Slepe (Sleap?) once, that seemed a nice club, and their vintage C150 was the best balanced/Trimmed/clean Cesspit that I have ever flown.

One of the guys in the Course ahead of me was about to do his confined Areas test, but whilst on Rotary wing training you are not allowed to fly fixed wing (even Loadies). So whilst I was in my first week of Wessex Tech ground school, we rented the C150 in my name, he ‘borrowed’ the confined areas list and we flew around and did an ariel recce of each one so he was prepped for his test!

So why is it essential for a teenager to learn to ride a motorbike?

(And everyone thought I was going to ask about the gun! I’m a good shot. I don’t need to ask about that.)

My Grandfather’s take on that was that all teenagers should be able to Swim, Ride & shoot, which I will be following with my own kids.

The biggest gain for me being an ex-biker, that has saved me many times, is being able to read the road surface, especially on that first rainfall for a while that brings up all the grease and diesel, you see too many car drivers not doing that…..

I assume that these be the same kind of WW2 helicopter as used in Where Eagles dare?

Luckily I am getting Sky+ installed this afternoon, so I should be able to record these…

FYI Disco Wings have now put a digital block on recording onto DVD 🙁 , I was able to record when I first got the DVD-R, I would set it to record the interesting stuff on it’s 1 or 2 am slot for future viewing, and then about a month ago it just stopped working. I tried it manually and found that it is copy barred.

Sorry, had to watch Wallace & Gromit with the kids instead, which also has an air-to-air battle scene, but probably not of the same interest to the forum as your film….

Made my 2.5 year old sit through Top Gun the other day after visiting Lakenheath though…..

Slightly off topic, but as there are so many knowledgeable Vulcan/Falklands people I thought I would ask:

On my Airman Aircrew Ground Training at Finningley in ’88, there was an instructor who was previously an AEOp on Vulcans, we nick-named him ‘Thud’ as rumour had it that he was posted onto training because he forgot to fuse the bombs on a raid on Port Stanley, and that’s the noise the bombs would have made as they hit the runway….Is there any truth behind this rumour?

answers on a postcard please……