Issue Number 24

August 2010

BACK THEN…….. Chapter 1

by Mike (Ginge) Thompson (681 Radio Luxemburg……208!!)

Once upon a time, long ago, in a distant land huge cumbersome flying machines called Javelins would fly in gay (am I allowed to say that) abandon, kept airborne by a select number of the Tall, Dark and 'Andsome brigade!!

To be a member of this elite crew was viewed by some as an honour and was bestowed on only a few of us (being ex-81st gave me a huge quotient of brownie points) and to protect our anonymity, they gave us a number, err oh yes I remember it was 33 and we resided in a place known as Goosepool, a place where the natives spoke with a most strange dialect!!!

Our primary task in those dark cold days was to keep Nikita (you know that short fat bald headed geezer who got to dance with Shirley MacLaine) and his naughty Russian air force pilots, in their even more cumbersome Bears, at arms length. So the Javelins were called upon regularly to go and chase them away.

Obviously, this meant keeping the Javelins honed and sharp and in a high state of readiness to be hurled aloft at a moments notice (well four minutes, actually).

The upshot of that meant we were regularly required to replace, as quickly as possible, all their bits and pieces if they got broken. Well, anyone who has researched the Javelin aircraft phenomenon during their brief time among us will have noted their engines seemed to have a persistent habit of breaking down thus requiring a rapid response to urgently remove the offending engine and to replace it with a good one.

I’m told ear defenders became mandatory kit to airside operatives as a direct result of the introduction of the Sapphire!! Furthermore, the starting system (cartridge initiated Avpin blasting seven kinds of ess aitch one tee out of a tiny turbine that often left lots of little blades strewn across the apron) had to be seen and heard to be believed.

Anyway, timing was of the essence and it was during these occasions that I was able to excel in harmony with the other members of the select team.

Replacing an engine would conventionally require prior removal of the fuselage ventral tanks to gain access to the jet pipe to engine clamps and other bits; however, back then, as I had not yet embarked upon my real ale consumption campaign I was one of the skinniest engine fitters in the land, and had also developed fingers like a midwife, this was my moment!!!.

I would strip down to just my overalls then crawl between the jet pipe and fuselage remove the clamps and drains swing the jet pipe out, similarly on refit do the reverse (you know up to shear, and back a flat stuff!!!) all without having to remove the ventral tanks. This saved a lot of time and effort and got engine changes down to well under four hours on the Mk 7´s, done and dusted.

Sadly, the fame our team enjoyed was indeed to be short lived as the Mk 9´s came on line and furthermore, between changing engines we began to sample the beverages bestowed upon us in the hostelries adjacent to Goosepool. This gave rise to much weight and dimensional increases in areas of ones body and as a consequence I was no longer able to do the crawl up the fuselage bit, the team lost its edge and our notoriety declined exponentially.

It would be churlish of me to suspect there was any ulterior motive in the minds of the “Powers that be” but once I had grown to these proportions my time with 33 was definitely on the line and would you believe, within a matter of weeks, I was posted to El Adem TSF.

As Burger King hadn’t been born yet the only alternative to a “cup of Brasso and a Duraglit sandwich” was NAAFI food (no one could cope with the grub in the airman’s mess at that time) so within a month of living in the desert among camel spiders and scorpions I was down to well below the size/weight ratio for Javelin engine change service, however, I was now the proud owner of a pet chameleon, a bed-bug free mattress, a pair of reddish-brown knees (rather than dirty knees you know 33!!! Geddit!) and had become a dab hand at transiting a whole bunch of aircraft, including Hastings, Beverley, Shakleton, Vulcan, Hunter, Varsity, Canberra, et al.

Needless to say the story does not end here because BACK THEN life in the RAF was rather unconventional compared with today’s environment, so please watch out for BACK THEN Chapter 2!!!!!!!!!