I wasn’t there, so any witnesses correct me if I’m incorrect, but this dining-in was at Marham during the ‘80s, when the resident units were 27 Sqn, 55 Sqn and 617 Sqn. You can imagine the constant rivalry/banter between the younger Tornado boys and the older and wiser Victor crews; rivalry which came to the fore at dining-in nights. On this occasion, as was usual, each sqn occupied its own leg to the top table, with the blunties occupying a 4th leg. As the evening went on, the banter and insults flew as they always did. Inevitably, the Tornado boys started shouting that all Victor crews were old/weak/knackered/past-it etc. In response 55 Sqn replied that anything the Tornado sqns could do, they could do better. Out of nowhere, 55 Sqn produced a lumberjack’s saw. This was one of the huge old-fashioned saws – the one’s that are 10 feet long, and need a person at each end. 55 Sqn cleared the mess table that they had been sitting around until a few seconds before, and started sawing the mess table in half!! With a couple of sweating Victor aircrew at each end of the saw, it was still hard work to saw through the big table, but with the rest of 55 Sqn behind them, and the astonished Tornado crews looking on, eventually the formerly-gleaming mess table fell to the floor in two pieces. After a short stunned silence, one of the Tornado sqns decided that it had to prove that it was of course still younger/stronger/quicker than 55 Sqn. So a couple of Tornado aircrew picked up the saw, and attacked their own mess table. By now the dining-room was in uproar. After a huge effort, they managed to cut up their own table in slightly less time than it had taken 55 Sqn. Next, the second Tornado sqn took the saw and cut its own table in half, again, in only a few seconds. So now the dining-room furniture had been almost demolished, with three of the finest mess tables lying on the carpet in pieces.
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It seems a bargain bearing in mind that the 2020 cost of creating just one fast jet pilot is estimated to be in the region of £4,000,000!
Aircraft were a rarity in the battle arena in 1914, all soldiers on the ground tending to have a go at shooting it down with their rifles. Most attempts were in vain.....
In August of that year, a B.E.F. column was marching towards Mons when a German plane overflew, Immediately, everyone began firing at it. Eventually, puffs of smoke were seen coming from the plane and it was brought crashing to the ground. Everyone was cheering their success when a French territorial soldier in a tattered uniform emerged from behind a hedge, wiping his long rifle in a business-like fashion. As he passed the jubilant soldiers, he was heard to say, "Not a bad shot, eh?" One day while on my jack Jones in the crew room the fruit segment came in and said.
“Where is Sandy, Dusty, Dinga, Bunny, Smudge, Chalky, Windy, Dozy, Smurf, Lofty, Tiny and the rest of the gash gang”? I said “Why flight, what’s the problem" “The wobbly orange is on the war path and the Jengo’s gone ape, there is a kite in the shed tits up on sticks, Dunlop’s dangling, and the donk’s need changing and it looks like we will have to rob the Christmas tree because the stackers box is tits”. “Well were do I start” I said. “Dusty and Dinga have gone to the snap cabin for some dohbi dust so they can wash their grundies. Bunny has crewed in at the block made sure he’s got four greens on his wank chariot and I suspect he’s cruising at two feet straight and level knocking up some bed frame hours. Smudge is down the Colonel stuffing his face with egg banjos, he’s probably finished by now. Chalky has gone to the smash and grab for some nosebag. The recently demoted Sandy Sanderson is trimming his tabs and then going to stores to sign his RAF tash back in. Windy was at the shag and shuffle last night and copped off with a lumpy jumper when he got her back to his wank palace he got her naked and invited us all round to inspect her ‘schammel wheel nuts’ I think he’s down the dick doctors now. Tiny went to the bank to find there was no item record of his account so he’s nil stock on blats. Ginge has P.V.R.ed he’s fed up of turning and burning and life in a blue suit he’s stowed his pins and is about to bang out. Smurf and lofty are arguing about who’s been in the longest smurf said to lofty he was in uniform when lofty was in liquid form to which lofty replied I was in Baghdad when you were in your dads bag”. After hearing all that the floppy sausage flipped his lid and said. “Tell them when you see them to expect jankers as they’re all on a fizzer." With apologies to the easily offended.  Paul Cote “ 'If in fact there’s a reverse takeover, with the McDonnell ethos permeating Boeing, then Boeing is doomed to mediocrity,' the business scholar Jim Collins told me back in 2000. 'There’s one thing that made Boeing really great all the way along. They always understood that they were an engineering-driven company, not a financially driven company . If they’re no longer honoring that as their central mission, then over time they’ll just become another company.'
"It’s now clear that long before the software lost track of its planes’ true bearings, Boeing lost track of its own." The story's told about Donald Douglas walking into a post-WWII meeting of his company's executives and realizing that he was the only person in the room with an engineering background; everyone else there were accountants or lawyers. That, goes the story, is when Douglas knew it was time to retire. That culture, which saw aircraft as a profit center rather than a real product - a machine intended for a purpose - has apparently consumed Boeing, just as it consumed Douglas Aircraft (later McDonnell Douglas). The same sickness gripped the American auto industry in the 1970s and 1980s; that industry almost died as a result, and many say that the sickness still exista, as evidenced by Ford's decision to abandon making cars in favor of crossovers, trucks, and SUVs. When making money as opposed to making a good product is the main driver of engineering driven firms like auto and aircraft companies, much trouble can be expected. Courtesy of 'As long as it flies or kinda' Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1092461220804460/?multi_permalinks=2796412027076029¬if_id=1574526687866567¬if_t=group_highlights |
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August 2020
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