A couple of other amusing incidents occurred during said Air Defence College visit.The Group Captain station commander referred to earlier, clearly trying to impress the exalted top RAF brass during their visit, inspected all the aircraft visiting to ensure that they were all looking spick and span. Visiting our Nimrod, which was parked with the bomb doors open, he accosted the crew chief, and, pointing to the long streaks of oil disfiguring the bomb bay doors, said: "I hope you're going to clean that off Chief!" the reply, in an extremely dour Scots accent, was: "Maybe we will, and maybe we won't...........Sirrrr." Exit baffled Staish.
Next he came across the parked Hercules, and - Entwood will probably correct me here - the props on the Herc had some painted rings round each blade, one of which IIRC was yellow. The paints used for this sort of job were very specialised, and designed for this purpose. Some of these coloured rings had, unsurprisingly, small portions of paint missing. Not looking very smart, thinks Staish, and the Herc crew being unavailable (code for pissed in the mess) he orders some - completely unqualified - ground crew to find some matching paint and smarten up these unattractive props. As the lucky airmen are standing back admiring their handiwork, cans of Dulux in hand, the Flight Engineer arrives. " Who the........told you to do this?" says he. "This aircraft is now grounded due to the use of improper materials, which could cause equipment failure." So now no Herc for the air display!
I was told later that Station Commander was removed from post shortly thereafter!
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Topic: End of an era .... (Read 3296 times)