CFH – Apparently Area 51 is a ruse, all the real secret stuff happens in the UK.

Tin foil hats to maximum

I would not be happy with his view of women as objects to be purchased……

Is it so different to all the Kevs out on a Saturday night buying alco pops for a girls to try and get a jump at the end of the night?

sockpuppet – Ah, the Vickers Funbus. The only aircraft I know of with a urinal for three on board.

Bloody noisy all those Conways.

It was basically two effing great big engines with a bloke strapped to the front and the smallest compliment of missiles it could get away with hanging off it.

Scary fast but scarily short legs.

Taffy Holden knows all about how fast a Ligthning can be, yikes!

And what is was all about, (Vangelis again!).

The problem with the F1 theme tune is every time I hear it now I think “the chain”.

Depends which resort.

Les Arcs didn’t start the lifts back up for MTBs until early/mid-July last year (we arrived the day after they started back up, though my memory fails me at this point as to what date that was!)

Aircraft technology has matured, there is now an accepted (by the majority at least) way of ‘doing things’, hence many aircraft starting to look alike. This of course is helped no end by there being far less individual companies making aircraft these days.

I do miss it a bit.

Don’t miss being sat at the mortar and rocket magnet better know as Basrah Airbase though. 😉

Willard – Whilst they do have a seriously purposeful look about them the bloody pilots (or perhaps flight planners) of the 21st SOS never seemed to understand the difference between Zulu time and local time. Hence those bloody noisy beasts passing over my block at RAF Stafford at silly o’clock in the morning being the notice I get that they’ve arrived early for that refuel I am supposed to be doing in an hour!

Beamers – BATUS?

Last time I was on that Shaun we were laying a submarine pipeline for off-shore tanker receiving on Ex Thirsty Flamingo.

Happy days.

If you are going to go the rotary route then it starts and finishes with the mighty wokka.

Flew! Hardly, I just filled the things with go juice and connected cr@p to them for onwards move.

Shaun – Nah, you’re gonna be playing with this little beast soon (in that harbour too).

But what often goes unreported is the damage done to otherwise stable families of the ‘punters’ when it all goes wrong.

If a punter in an outwardly appearing stable family feels the need to visit a prostitute then the damage is already there.

Of course some people visit prostitutes because they like it, no break-down in marriage or other problems required.

Some would argue that you always pay for sex, one way or the other.

Shaun – You love your Mastiffs don’t you?

Yeah, loads of trees in Afghanistan in the areas in which the Jackal operates.

BTW, most of the people doing the fighting are as foreign to Afghanistan as the British (in fact some of them are British) are. They are very far from being ‘suppressed inhabitants’.

Not you’re talking CFH.

Me hooking up a load at Dungannon.

Sonor – Its mainly WAFU personnel who have such a low opinion of Sharkey, seeing as its them who had to work with him.

I agree with you though about proper carriers. Their flight decks are well-suited to the kind of cocktail parties the RN excels at throwing.

😉

The Squadrons Are Coming (RN flight deck ops, scroll down a bit).

sofatester – Did a squaddie steal your girlfriend off you?

Mainly the bike. (its not white either BTW).

The wall seems alright though, as do the slightly aged pieces of patio furniture.

I know, I was quite confused too. Perhaps he had a face lift or something.

Actually in her non-working life she was a very submissive person, just a very good actress for work.

Sharkey Ward is widely considered an @rse, especially by those who had the misfortune of working directly with him.

A far better book on the exploits of Harriers in the Falklands is,

I used to go out with a woman who worked as a professional dominatrix and though its not prostitution as such (being as there is no actual sex involved) its often lumped into the same category and some of the offences (such as living off immoral earnings) can also be applied in the case of arrest.

She had no qualms about doing the job, she saw it as basically a form of acting and it paid very well. She had never ben troubled by the police, worked from a nice house in Chelsea, paid taxes (though she was officially a ‘relationship counsellor’) and had quite a large amount of wealthy clients (bot male and female) and some of them were fairly well known public figures.

Jimmers – That version didn’t officially go to the Falklands, though the basic airframe contained within may well have.

You’ll be wanting one of these,

On the high altitude thing apparently in the good old days an RAF Lightning taking part an exercise with the US ‘bounced’ a U2 at extremely high altitude from above! A purely ballistic flight path was used and only one pass was possible but it proved the U2’s weren’t completely safe from manned interceptors.

Under £20, a chain?

Ian – Ah, thats named after one of these,

Indeed it is.

Uber geek points if you can identify what this one is carrying.

Actually, I was trying to see if I could tempt anyone out of the woodwork.

Of course you were.

Back to the end of the platform Mr Druid and take your Thermos with you.

It’s still really cool though and Gulf War 1 must have been great fun for the plane.

War isn’t fun.

Although I can see their aesthetic appeal and functional beauty military aircraft aren’t toys for having fun with.

(Sorry for the downer folks)

BTW, apparently the Frogfoot was built based on the loser in the competition that eventually lead to the A10, the Northrop YA-9A,

10,000 rivets flying in close formation.

If you legalise something you can instigate a degree of control and also tax it.

Same goes for certain types of currently illegal drugs.

I think that ranks alongside making sure you have enough change for the parking meter as day 1, lesson 1 terrorist training camp stuff.

Anyway, ‘cool’ aircraft borne out of the Cold War needn’t necessarily be fighter aircraft or bombers.

The legend that is Bravo November.

I have that picture on the wall above my computer, a leaving gift from when I left the RAF.

Eurofighter current role: Drop bombs on taliban after spending a small fortune being upgraded to fulfill this role.

You’ve been believing what the papers say haven’t you?

The UK order of Typhoons were always designed to operate in the A-G role (as they were ordered as a replacement for the Jag as well as the Tornado F3).

Tranche 1 were always going to have an ‘austere’ capability but later tranches were always destined to have a more comprehensive A-G capability.

vinnyeh – The B50 Washington was a development of the original B29 and was very much a Cold War aircraft, both in the original bomber role and later as a tanker aircraft.

Oh and low level doesn’t have to mean fast jets.

Crikey