The Longest Journey...

I'm not smart enough to remember who said it but, "the longest journey begins with the shortest step."

I'm sure lots of people have made long journeys.  But have you made difficult journeys? What is your most difficult journey?

Mine was a delightful trip across to Goose Bay in Canada.  At Goose Bay the fast jets could use the vast wilderness of northern Canada to practise their low flying without disturbing anyone, and hence it was a popular destination for us to travel to.  (Popular with the pilots actually - but only when flying, not really any other time as Goose Bay is a bit of a one horse town. If I recall correctly it has about 12 miles of tarmac-ed road which just stops, two or so bars, and just a couple of shops. Oh and a fantastic pizza place.  But I digress.)

One particular trip out there I was selected to fly across in a C-130 Hercules.  These may look graceful and if you see them flying about in the UK they are often at low level and tonking along at fairly high speed, but the one I was on this time was loaded down with over 50 people and a LOT of kit.

How do you imagine the seating to be on a Herc? Well, it's certainly not very comfortable.  The seats for passengers are all along the side of the aircraft, leaving the main floor space free for pallet loads of kit to be secured down.  Occasionally if the Herc is configured as a "trooper" then there are a second row of seats put down in the middle of the floor - but the narrow width of the body of the aircraft mean that there is not quite enough room for legs and knees and such, and you find that your left leg is between the knees of the person sitting opposite you, and his right leg is between yours...and so on. Legs are alternated along the length of the row of seats, which are a single bench-like effort.  The only way you know where your "seat" is, is from matching up a pair of seat belt ends to form a single belt which secures you in...almost safely!

Anyway, this one had a combination of the two - a short trooper, but with pallet space to the rear.  The next important thing to know about travelling on a Herc is the position of where you sit dictates how comfortable your flight will be.

Not that it is ever REALLY comfortable.

But for the sake of it. If you sit at the front - the journey will be noisy, but warm...but if you sit at the back then the reverse is true...its relatively quiet, but it can get very cold.

In this case, to fly across the Atlantic, I was fortunate to sit at the back of the plane. This meant that I would be able to take advantage of the spare space that the ramp offers - I had come prepared you see - with a sleeping bag.

Because I knew that the journey would take 13 hours.

Yes. 13 hours.

So I want you to imagine the scene of being on a C-130.  You get to sit, during take off and landing, with your knees between the legs of someone else...and their knees are between yours.  If you are lucky you may be able to stay warm for the trip, but you will end up deafened...or else you might be in the situation I was going to be in, able to get some sleep, as long as you are well wrapped up.

Every so often you will get stepped on by the Loadmaster, who for some reason wanders about the cabin with a torch looking at things. I think he's just doing it for something to do, he doesn't need to do it. He just does it to spook people out and to keep himself busy.

A few other times you will find yourself dripped on by what you hope is water...you are never quite sure it is...but you hope so.  One thing you know it isn't is that you know it hasn't come from the toilet.  Oh! The toilet!  This is a posh, stainless steel bucket with chemicals in.  With a fabric curtain around it to preserve your dignity.  You never, NEVER, ever, sit down on it...

The best thing you can hope for is to get yourself out of the seat as soon as you can, find a comfortable place to spread out (if possible) and to SLEEP. Sleep for the entire duration of the journey.

If you can sleep. Because there is one thing I forgot to say.  It's the vibration.  It's like strapping yourself to a 1950's washing machine which has developed an ability to wander across the kitchen when left on. Now do that for 13 hours.

But you know what. I loved it. I love travelling. But as some people like travelling to get to places, I like travelling for the sake of going there. And it is journeys like this one that really pique my interest...and I love them.

I've done the 13hours across the Atlantic. I've been on a Herc flying out of Al Kharj to Turkey where we had to divert into Amman, Jordan (due to a lightning strike in Turkey).  I've flown on a Tristar where half the cabin space was an open floor - open enough to be able to have a game of football. I've watched Tornado F3's carry out Air-to-Air refuelling with the VC-10 that I've been flying in. I've watched us leave the Tornado's standing as that same VC-10 cruised away from them after that refuel has been completed.  I've been on a Herc where the underfloor heating (such as it is) had broken and had ramped up to the maximum and our boots were melting as we tried to walk around...

But I've had some great trips. Difficult trips. Long trips. Short trips. But there is one thing I have learnt from flying with RAF air transport is that invariably the getting there is always interesting.

Operation Comete...A Photo Story...

If you are over 40, OR are unfortunate to be at home during the day and have satelite TV, then you may be familiar with the TV programme "The Secret Army".

This was the original programme that "'allo 'allo" went on to take the micky out of, but was based on the factual expliots of the Resistance to the German Occupation during World War 2.  The notable feature of BOTH programmes were the downed airmen who's aim was to evade from the Germans and escape back to Britain by being passed along a chain of helpers to get them out of Belgium and France and across the Pyrenees and into Spain.

(As an aside, I have spoken to ex-RAF aircrew about the programme 'Allo 'Allo...and they are not very complimentary of it. They didn't like the idea of the Germans in it being portrayed as stupid and bumbling.  In fact despite some 60 years passing there still was a great animosity towards the Germans - understandably I guess.  But I think that if Harry Patch could forgive after 90 years...maybe...but then, who am I to judge? I have no idea what those guys in that war went through - I despite taking part in events to re-create several things from the war and talk to people involved originally - I cannot imaging what it must have been like to do those things for real.)

This was called the Comete Line and was originally set up by the fantastic Dedee de Jongh, and was successful in some 4000 aircrew making their escape from the Germans.

This is a bit of an un-known part of RAF history and so to raise a bit of awareness as part of our Leadership and Personal Development training a party of some 30 of us from RAF Cosford undertook the task of recreating the route of the escape line - From Brussels through to Hernani in Spain.

The first part was cycling across France, where we biked for about 9 hours a day in shifts with people always biking and the others resting in the support van. Ours was Team Pasty...Don't ask why, but maybe by the look of some of the bellies in the picture above you may be able to guess...Some of the cycling was fairly easy through picturesque fields of France, although it got harder as we got closer to the Pyrenees. Not exactly Tour de France stuff, but it certainly tested our fitness...

After a week of this we transfered to foot where we were to spend two days walking across the Pyrenees from France into Spain. This was a fairly difficult route that was exactly the same as they had done in the 1940's.  That house in the background was the last staging post in France. It was also the place that Dedee was arrested by the German Gestapo.  It was, er, quite wet for the walk, which given the heat, made things to be a bit uncomfortable.

It involved a river crossing, which marked the border between France and Spain. It was remarkably smelly and remarkably cold! In fact my trainers for that have never been the same since. The evaders back in the war made exactly the same crossing as we did, wearing a pair of cork plimsole type shoes.  The original guide was a Basque smuggler who by all accounts was a bit of a man-mountain. His name was Florentino Goicoechea and it was his grave where we laid a wreath (see below).

Once into Spain we met up with a modern day local guide - a moutain runner who was using our event as part of his training for the next mountain marathon he was to take part in and who decided to take us up some difficult and fairly big hills.  In fact thinking back, he guided us across the mountains, through woods, and across country...but I don't remember him actually having a map.

As you can see I am carrying a Union Flag. This was a great honour for myself, as this flag was the property of an ex-RAF Prisoner of War, and it was the only such flag to have been inside Colditz Castle Prison during the war. It was pretty amazing to be able to hold something with so much history behind it, with so much memory attached to it, with such importance.

It was an honour to take part in that event and to do so with two ex-RAF aircrew who actually did it for real in 1943, Bob Frost and Gordon Mellor, who were an absolute inspiration to us.

For more details on the Evaders Story have a look at The ELMS web-page

As a Post Script to this I met up with Bob and Gordon a year later when I was fortunate to be the RAF Cosford representative at Dedee's funeral in Brussels. You can check out her amazing story at this wiki page.

I thought it was a fairly important event, but I didn't realise JUST how important it was until I actually arrived in Brussels airport.  I was asked why was I visiting Belguim and I told the police woman that I was there to attend a funeral. "What funeral?" I was asked.

"Oh, errr, Andree de..."

I was interrupted as she said "The Comtess de Jongh? Mouisour, please go through. She was a national hero for us.  Thank you for visiting to attend her funeral and for paying respect on behalf of your country."  I was taken aback.  It was a HUGE deal in Belguim, with the funeral being attended by Belgian Royal Family. And me.

It's not always pretty...

Here's another one that was a request from Twitter...*

Bird Strike.

It's not a good thing.  In fact it's one of the very worst things.  A bird strike is when an aircraft and a bird collide - either on the ground or in the air. The very worst sort of bird strike is an "injestion" where a bird gets sucked into the jet engine, or a close second is a "cockpit breech" where the bird strikes the windscreen of the aircraft and goes into the cockpit.  (Some of the latter of these are quite horrendous to see pictures of.)

My bird strike story is not so dramatic. But it was fairly gross, and is an example of some of the less glamourous stuff that we can do in the Royal Air Force.

Again it was when I was back on 29F(Sqn) and we were on a trip away for a short detachment to Spain - near to Seville actually.  One of the jets called in on the way back to the base after a sortie saying that it had suffered a bird strike.  And it was the jet that I was servicing...

We all went out to watch it land, and from the distance we could see no damage, which was a real relief, and I went out to see the jet in and do the servicing.  We began to think that the pilot had got it wrong and the bird had not hit, but rather it had been a near miss.

As I marshalled it into the parking slot though, it became clear that there had indeed been a strike, although the damage was minimal...

What had happened was that the bird - some sort of big gul - had hit the  windscreen of the Tornado F3 with a glancing blow and it had splattered all the way up the screen, and then had smeared itself up over the canopy.  From here it had got caught in the air stream over the jet and had been dragged over the top of the fuselage.  Halfway down the upper fuselage were the Homer Lobe aerials - two antenna that stuck out upwards for about 8-10" high. The bird had hit the aerials, leaving a lot of debris behind, before it had been sucked into an Intercooler intake.

Where it had got stuck.

It was quite clearly very, very dead. What was left of it.

And it was my job to get it out and to clear it up.  And it wasn't nice.  The memory of trying to wash and wipe the blood and the guts of the bird of the windscreen will stay with me forever...and the smell of the slightly cooked birds remains, as I pulled the various bits of it out of the Intercooler intake, will live with me for a long time.

At times, it's a glamourous life in the RAF.  But never a dull one.








*I think the requester was after something else, but this is what I got ;-)

A day in the life...

I was recently asked to describe a typical day for myself.

That's pretty hard, to be honest as I don't really have a typical day, I don't think that any one in the RAF - or indeed the Armed Forces - has such a thing.  No two days are the same, things change and everything is different.  Certainly, if you want a steady job, doing the same thing day in-day out then the Armed Forces certainly isn't for you.


I can get up to lots of different things during a typical day - from the boredom of trawling through emails, to doing some research for the next Continuous Improvement Event I will be running.  I could be busy in meetings or I could be giving a presentation to new arrivals on station.  I could even be delivering some personal development training to station personnel. 

I might be actually running a CI Event - where I am leading a group of up to 20 people looking at the processes they have in their workplaces and looking to solve any problems they have, or develop plans to solve future problems.

If it's an exciting day I could be over with the RAF Regiment doing some Force Protection training - firing rifles or first aid training.  I might be visiting sections to see how they work - and getting to try out some of the things they do.

I could be sitting in the mess for lunch, and reading the papers and having a coffee after it.

I might be busy sorting out some paperwork for the station ideas and suggestions scheme that I assist in administering.  I could be sorting out the affairs of the people who live in the block I look after - from making sure that any outstanding maintenance jobs are chased up to sorting out who is moving in or out of the block or even dealing with their personal problems.

I could be down the gym, spending time on the running machine or bike. I could be having my fitness test, or I could be having a game of badminton or squash. I might even be in the weights room.

I could be doing some personal training of my own - from IT based courses through to a PRINCE 2 project management course.

I might be spending time briefing the boss on what we have been doing or writing a report for the Central RAF CI Team. I might even be just surfing the net for a while, whilst having a cup of tea. Occasionally I might have a biscuit.

But my point is that what I do depends on what I have to do.  And like I said there is no typical day. And that's what makes the RAF such a great job for me.  I never know what the day may bring until it is underway...it certainly stops me getting bored with the job, and keeps me on my toes.

A little bit of Robbie...

Back in the late 90's I spent a fair bit of time (although not enough for a medal it would seem - grrrrrrrrrrr!) in Saudi as part of the Coalition effort to police the UN no-fly zone over southern Iraq.  I was based at the Saudi Air base of Al Kharj, not too far away from Riyahd.

There things weren't too bad.  After a while the old Tent City was demolished and we moved into a nice new set of accommodation blocks, with proper messes and other entertainment facilities, such as a fantastic gym, a shopping area and a superb swimming pool.

This was a fantastic place to go to chill out and get a great tan as well as be able to cool off in the water.  The only problem was that the place also had a superb sound system where people could ask the "DJ" to play CD's they had brought along.  Given the vast majority of people at the Base were American - on a scale of almost 10-1 in their favour, it meant that the music that was played at the pool tended to be very American inspired.

But not really in a good way.

Well from the Brit's points of views, as quite often the music would represent the type of people populating the pool.  At times it was heavy duty, hard core Rap. sometimes it would be R&B soul, one particularly bad day it was country.

Actually it was two types of music that day. Country. And Western.

And that day it went on. And on. And on. And there were a lot of Brit's getting, well, fed up of the stuff.

And eventually I'd had enough of it too. I'd been trying to blank out the C&W music with my own CD discman (remember THEM?) but failing when I decided I'd had enough.  I flipped through the CD wallet I had and spotted Robbie Williams' "I've been expecting you."

That'll do.

Off I stomped to the DJ...and asked him...pleaded with him to put it on...I showed him the CD and he didn't recognise it. I said "It's Robbie Williams. It's good. People will like it."

"ohhhh Robbie Williams.  I've heard good things about them" (Yeah, he said "Them") "I'll put it on next."

I plodded back and lay down in the sun again. The Country still played until the end of the song.  Then there was a gap.

Then. The acoustic guitar of "Strong" by Robbie started and the song kicked in...and the 50 or so Brits there by the pool all cheered...just for a short while a little bit of Saudi Arabia, and the Little America that it had become, changed to become a little bit of Britain, with all the RAF there that day singing for all their worth.

Yes. Robbie Williams saved my sanity.

An officer is never wrong...

Just a quick post, as I was reminded of this incident last night from a Twitter message to me from a follower who told me a relative of his had once also been at Coningsby.

Back in the day - when people arrived at Coningsby - they had to do a weeks worth of "gash jobs" the so called "SWO's Marines". This was basically doing any jobs around the station that was no dedicated manpower to fill. It was fair, it was simple, and you were based in the Guardroom where you were delegated a task as it came in. I remember my task was acting as an assistant to the Housing Officer when it came to laying carpets in Married Quarters.

The guardroom is a busy place. Passes and permits were issued there and it was the major focal point for people arriving at the station. In addition people on "duties" were based there - the Orderly Corporal, Orderly Sergeant and Orderly Officer. The job of these people was basically to be a focal point for problems and issues arrising "out of hours". Things like dealing with problems in the Blocks, minor discipline problems, anything all the way through to being some of the first on the scene if there was a crash or if the "balloon went up" (this WAS the Cold War!).

One of the less difficult tasks, but one that was a tradition - and one still kept up - is that the RAF Ensign outside the Station Headquarters was raised and lowered by the duty team. The Sergeant would blow a whistle, everyone about would halt, turn and face the Ensign and stand at attention as the flag was lowered and the Orderly Officer would salute. Once the flag was down, the Sgt blows the whistle with two blasts and people continue on their way. It's just a quick 30 second ceremony (but one where some embarrassing problems can arise - but THAT'S a subject for a future blog!) but at that time at Coningsby it was done in the morning at 8am to raise the ensign, and at either 6pm (in summer) or 5pm (winter) to lower it.

Anyway, I was sitting in the office on this particular afternoon at about 4pm on a drab February afternoon. When a rather flustered looking Flight Lieutenant burst into the guardroom.

"I'm here" he gasped.

"Yes you are, Sir" said the Guardroom Sgt "But WHY are you here?"

"For the Flag! Where's the Orderly Sgt?"

The guardroom staff looked quizzically at each other.

"Sir," said the sergeant in a rather soft - some would have said condescending - voice "Sir, the Ensign isn't lowered until 5pm today. It's only 3:58, Sir." (Some-how he made the last "Sir" sound like a real insult.)

The Flight Lieutenant looked at his watch. Realisation dawned. He'd got the time wrong. But he was now faced with being the only officer in a room of about 6-7 lower ranks - including me - a fresh-faced Junior Technician, straight out of training, all gawping at the way he had burst into the room.

He sighed and gave his wrist a waggle, shaking the watch.  He tapped it once or twice.

"Aaaaaaaah" he said in a desperate bid to save the last bit of dignity and respect that he could, "My watch is still on German time..."

Block Life

In work today, it's all been about the Block.

Junior members of the Armed Forces who are single (or separated or living away from their wife/husband) mostly live on base in what we call Single Living Accomodation.

Or what is known as "The Block".

And each block has a management team that is charged with looking after the block - in terms of the repair and maintenance, cleaning, general day-to-day management. I am lucky to be in charge of one of the oldest here at RAF Benson.  Today I have been checking up on works outstanding, updating room lists, checking for future inspection dates, general admin sort of things.

Built back in the 1930's when the station was first constructed, it is a classic "H" block, with four wings of accomodation with a linking corridor containing "Ablutions" (such a military word) and Utility rooms.  Originally the wings would have been open plan, housing about 15-18 men in each, with an NCO's room at the end for the Block Cpls to live it. Now each wing has 7 rooms in it meaning that a block originally for more than 100 now has about 50 in it.

To be honest, back then - with that many people in it, it must have been a bit grim - certainly by todays standards.  And it got me to thinking about the sort of accomodation I've lived in over my time.

When I was back in training I lived in an open plan multi-man room; some 17 of us in a large room at Cosford, and it certainly made for an interesting time. It had hard wood floors, with little brass screws holding the wood down. The windows were original 1930's single glazing - again with brass all over them. We had to clean the room every Monday night - polishing the floor to a nice gloss shine, and Brasso-ing all the screws.

Eventually we moved into 4-man rooms with CARPETS! Very modern for 1988. And after I graduated from training I moved to RAF Coningsby into a single room.  This was about 20 foot long by 10 foot wide (Give or take) but had a sink. This was a major step up for me. I still had to use shared showers and toilets, but it wasn't a bad place. It did me well for what I expected at the time.

I moved out of the block shortly after to get married and live in my own house.  I spent the next 15 years in either my own place or in a Married Quarter but I ended up moving back into the Block when I was divorced and working as an Instructor, back at RAF Cosford.

This was about 4 years ago now and I moved into a fairly new "Superblock".  This was a fantastic room with loads of storage. Still about 25 foot by about 12 foot, it also had it's own en-suite shower/wet-room. It was a fantastic little place, showing how far the services had come. It was well maintained and we all had responsibility for our own space. It wasn't much - but it was my own space. I could decorate it how I wanted. Put in what furniture I wanted. Have it how I wanted it...as long as I put it back to the standard magnolia walls when I left.

I had a phone line in the room, with fast internet, and although I thought about it, I never went as far as a couple of the lads did and get Sky.

I loved that room. I loved that place. It was a good time - and I had a good time in it!

The problem is, that I was spoilt really. Whilst a lot of units DO have Superblocks, a lot don't - and the block I look after at Benson certainly isn't . I knew it wouldn't last and eventually I would be promoted and posted away and my accomodation would change.  That happened last year and I am where I am right now.

I moved out of the Superblock and into the Mess...into a room 20 foot by about 10 foot...with a sink. But in this case it is not my home - it's just a crash pad for four nights - because at weekends I am back home with my family so I get the best (and worst!) of both worlds!

(As a bit of interest, I was visiting Coningsby recently and when I arrived on camp - I noticed my old block had been demolished and a nice new huge super-superblock has been built on where it stood...)