RAF Days part 4

I passed out from RAF Cosford in October 1971, and after a short stay with my parents was off to Cornwall. Here's another segment from my biography 'Do or do not'.

As the train headed down the branch line from Par to Newquay I couldn’t help but love the country view and then, as if it was an omen, a Nimrod flew into my sight taking off from RAF St. Mawgan I guess. It looked like a giant seagull, grey and white and magnificent. I couldn’t wait to be working on them and still had my ambition to be aircrew one day. There was a bus waiting to take us to the camp that was out in the country and as I reported to the guardroom and was appointed to my billet it suddenly hit me that I was out in the big world at 17 years of age. Not knowing what was going to happen from day one had not really bothered me in training, but now that I was a marksman and an air radar mechanic the events of the world would affect me greatly. As I was to find out there would be various times when we would be tested on readiness and I would like to think that I delivered what was expected of me in full. I settled into a 4 bed billet and set out to explore the delights that the camp offered, mainly the NAAFI.

For the uninitiated NAAFI stood for Navy Army Air Force Institute, but a few of the guys were sure it meant No Ambition And F**k all Interest, and when I arrived there I saw what they meant. It wasn’t the most welcoming of places and did have the odd cockroach running over the back of the couches so I made a mental note to avoid the food there until I was sure. The following morning I was up with the lark for my first day on the front line. Breakfast started at 7 and the bus left at 7.45 for first line servicing, and I must admit I enjoyed the breakfast, better than I expected and certainly better than RAF Cosford. As I stepped off the bus for the first day I was greeted by my Sergeant who assigned me to shadow one of the corporals on the shift to get the routine down. My first job was running diagnostic tests on a couple of the radar systems on an aircraft that had just returned. The pilot had reported some gremlins on the system in flight so it had to be checked out. As an air radar mechanic my job was to find the fault down to the unit and swap it out, shipping it down to the bay for repair and replacing it with a serviceable unit.

The tests took about 30 minutes and I replaced the faulty unit, closed and fastened the hatch and removed the test equipment and my tools back to the store. The tool store had a shadow board setup so that any tools not on the board would reveal a huge dayglo gap, and if the tool couldn’t be accounted for then the assumption was it had been left on the aircraft and everything stopped until it was found. I became very aware of this as one of the other new guys lost a screwdriver and after a couple of hours of stripping down all of the jobs that had been done since his shift started he found it in his jacket pocket. Let’s just say he didn’t live that down for a VERY long time.

My Sergeant was a very decent chap who pulled a great stroke for me. One of the aircraft landed with a radar problem that needed to be checked in flight, so he assigned me with the Corporal to go up on the next aircraft and check it. The truth was the Corporal fixed the fault in 5 minutes and the rest of the flight was just enjoy the ride. The mission was circuits and bumps, which meant a trainee Nimrod pilot taking off, circling the field, approaching to land, touching down, full power and taking off again. This was continuous for a couple of hours and they let me sit on the flight deck for the last half an hour which just fuelled my flying bug even more. I was truly disappointed when we finally taxied off the runway at the end of the trip. One thing I need to clarify here is that, even though it’s been over 40 years since I left the RAF I will not say anything that could be regarded as privileged information. Nimrods are still being used on missions and a lot of RAF techniques and systems are still current while updated. I’ll relate stories and events but will put nothing down that could in any way compromise our servicemen on their missions overseas. Even though I no longer wear a uniform I still believe in the freedoms we enjoy and, if required, would pick up a weapon to defend my home, be it the UK or the USA where I now have the great honour to reside.