Due to us expecting a new arrival, I was able to swap with another guy from the Squadron and went July to September 89. When I got there and heard all the depressing talk from some people, I decided to try and make the most of it and with a good shift on the Chinook detachment we worked hard and played hard and at work despite the odd issues caused by some in charge it turned out a blast. My work ethics and oft made gaffs helped, for example two of us ended up in front of OC eng for separate reasons, but that is another story.
I had a brilliant Falklands slate that covered various idiosyncrasies of mine that seemed to keep some people happy, including a towing arm with a learner plate attached after my attempts to push a Chinook into the hangar after my leaving do on the Sunday and at the end of the shift from the exercise they called early on the Monday morning, I will claim the fifth on the details.
Rotortuning was one of my pet projects as they had decided that the Odiham totortune cell were the only ones that came down and carried them out, mainly post minors and if they could not make it the Rotortune was limmed until they could get down, which I reckoned was an expensive waste of time and money, especially as we had quite a few very experienced Rotortune guys on both shifts, after a bit of a struggle I convinced management to go for it and it proved a workable cost effective process. Mind you one pilot was not happy and tried to make out that the first one I did was a bag of crap, despite both heads being almost bulls eyed on the charts, so off to Odiham went the data and they agreed with me so never had an issue after that.
Took my computer with a flight sim on and shared it with a guy from the other shift, a near riot occurred when new JENGO thought it would be a good idea to extend my tour by a week to allow me to take charge of a Combining Transmission change, tried to change the slot back to the original Tuesday, but ended up going on the Thursday instead, worked out as it was a better return route than the Tuesday one would have been. Had two champagne breakfasts and looked forward to seeing my new daughter again.
I did two Orderly Sergeants; one was in main reception and one in ‘The Pit’ (if memory serves was the name for the Army end. The main reception was a laugh due to the people you met and had to deal with, I got a phone call from the female accommodation complaining about the party in another room that had male personnel in attendance, which was not permitted, what happened after is not for here I feel.
The one in ‘The Pit’ I was briefed that I had to close and lock up their bar at 10.00 and then lock ourselves in our room and do not leave until the following morning. I duly turned up at 10.00 hours to find the bar grill was down and locked but there was a large group of army bods and a small group of RAF guys which I knew, the RAF bods finished their drinks and left, which left me a tad worried now until one of the guys, who turned out to be one of their SNCO’s, asked if they could finish the crate they had stashed as it was a birthday party for one of the troop, he said they would be out by 11.00 and would tidy up and check the windows were all closed, I went back at 11.00 and all was cleared up and windows closed, so locked up and went to bed.
Next day I was summoned to the boss as it had been rumoured that I had exceeded my authority by permitting the bar to extend its opening hours, once explained that for a peaceful co-existence with our fellow inmates that I had merely allowed them to finish the drinks they already had so they let me off. Was recognised around the place by the Army guys and never had any problems with them.
As you can see, I had and eventful tour and there is plenty more but as I said we made the best of it and so would have to say that for somewhere were we had no choice about going, it was a good experience. As an aside, we tried to beat the record at Ascension to see who could drink the most while the aircraft was being refuelled and turned around.
