Ascoteer

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

The only way I would buy a Harley is if it was a Buell! <<<<<<< Sports bike rider, racer, and totally insane petrolhead.

Of course one does not go Stateside and say: "Oi Mate. Can I bum a fag off you'" * * = "Hello friend, may I scrounge a cigarette pleae?"

IIRC Stingray was cleared to drop from Grimrod at up to 500' and 300kts.We must have had a different release system from the bomb bay carrier beams (and presumably a larger parachute), but that's SLF territory! WRT the EVTs - these were live torpedos but with the warhead replaced by telemetary gear. The Grimrod force would deploy crews out to Florida on Excercise RUM PUNCH (usually Patrick AFB just off Cocoa Beach, Orlando , but it could be Navy Jacksonville or even Homestead AFB) to practice hunting Royal Navy and US Navy SSNs in the AUTEC range (Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center) off Andros Island in the Bahamas. This would include live-drops of the EVT. The torpedo was supposed to track the sub and then shear away once inside a predetermined range, float to the surface and be recovered, whereupon the torpedo tracking data could be compared with that in the aircraft's CTS (Central Tactical System) as well as the records on the AQS-901 sonics suites. Yeah right... A crew deployed from my Sqn and went up against a RN SSN (an S boat I believe). Attacking the sub the torpedo ran true, right up to impact. Apparantly it was a rather large clang!

As a SAAI (Skill At Arms Instructor) my advice is: Always shoot at the centre of mass. It's easier to hit and contains all the 'squidgey bits'. Ergo it's the place the bullet will do the most damage...

The Prilla is an RS250 not an RS250 'Race Replica'. Ie it's a racer with lights and a horn, as opposed to a stock road bike. The engine was tuned by the guy as used to do Joey Dunlop's bikes... It will (and has) spank any 600cc prod bike ever built, and it will see off a number of 750s. In the twistys, few can stay with me.

I'm 5'71/2" (the 1/2" is important !) which makes me too small for a Priller RSV Mille. Hence me getting the Duc. My GPZ1100 that I had back in the '80s was realy too tall for me - If I got a lean on stationary I couldn't hold it up. Yup, just like my b**** of a sister (who I havent talked to since 2009 and probably never will again).

Sadly we never had gunships. If you want to model a RAF Albert out of the Airfix 'Gunship' you need to shorten the port sponson (aside from filling in the gun ports and correcting all the other Airfix errors).

Hmm. 998 Duc and RS250 Prilla. Nuff said!

Ah yes motorbikes...

For a mail drop to 'The Andrew' we had a 'Mail Container'. Think torpedo but without a motor and without a warhead (natch), para' deployed but with flotation aids. Better still think WW2 para stores container. Normally we'd RV with the boat, do a run of three (three photo' passes) in order to give them time to launch a RIB. Then extend out, turn back, open the bomb doors at 4 miles and drop on a datum usually a few hundred yards aft and to one side. So there we are, three bloody Sundays in a row we've been tasked with droping mail to boats in the Channel. Why the buggers couldn't launch a helo and collect their own damn mail is beyond me - it's not as if they were mid-Atlantic or even in the SWApps! I'll repeat that, three Sundays in a row! Good old Northwood. Not! Now, aside from the fact that it means one couldn't have a wee dram on a Saturday night, it meant a crack of sparrowfart start; into Ops well before sun up (we'd be in a couple of hours before Take Off in order to brief, get out to the jet, and get it set up because of course oh no we couldn't just do a mail drop, we had to make it worthwhile by extending it into a 6 hr OT - Operational Trainer ). You can imagine people are a wee bit brassed off! By the time I get out to the jet, Nav 2 and the Flight Eng are already there and giggling amongst themselves. The bomb doors are shut (this is not normal). Apparently, they and the Ground Crew have stuffed the bombay full of bog rolls / paper gash / cotton waste / whatever. So we get airborne and head out into the Channel. Somewhere off The Lizard we find (IIRC) a Type 23 Frigate (although I forget which one). I'm in the LHS and flying as we do our 'run of three', while my Skipper is telling the boat that we have a problem with our bomb doors and that we might be unable to drop... After some discourse with those well known Matelots: 'Roger Wait Out' and Pee Woh Here' we tell them that the porblem is solved. I extend out to about 4 miles and make a Thompson / Harvey-Turn back in (bomb doors shut) ie I reverse course. I can see the RIB speeding towards the Datum. Approaching the Datum the Skipper calls: "Standby. Dropping Now, Now, NOW! and opens the bomb doors, resulting in a veritable snow-storm of paper across the surface of the Oggsplash. This is accompanied by much anguished and agonised sqwaking from the Fish-Heads on the R/T.. Hehehehehe! We keep it going for several minutes before calling 'SPOOF!' and dropping the Mail Container for real. Funnily enough we didn't get called out the next weekend. Job DONE!

Well I was never really in to make-up and stuff (leastways not unless it was cam-cream)... Every time I visit Stateside I end up with a 'busman's holiday' (buswoman's holiday?) because I invariably end up getting pinged to fix people's cars. Every single time!

226 OCU aircraft. Lookin' good Neil! I'll be doing my 1/72 T4 as an OCU jet.

Don't even get me started on doing mail drops for the bloody Fish-Heads! It always seemed to involve an O' Christ Thirty start on a Sunday morning. I might tell a dit about how we 'persuaded' Northwood to stop with the idiot timing...

The K-Series engine was never homologated for the North American market so you wont see MGFs and MG TFs in the USA, I'm not sure about Canada though. With it's mid-engined layout it handles like a Formula Car. However it's not for the unwary, you have to drive it else it will bite you. Hard!

It's spelled craic. It's Irish (drived from Lowland Scots and entering the language via Ulster) for news, gossip, fun, entertainment, enjoyable conversation, and a bit of 'carry on'. Miggers I have the advert for my business on the race Midget. Sadly I don't have a website tho, business is generated by word of mouth, generally through the classic sports car racing world. Additionally, every engine that I build gets its own unique PRE number (Priestess Race Egines).

I don't go around skilleting people just because they don't know stuff. The decal is the MGF Registe website - I used to be Competitions Secretary.

Brake fluid works well too.

I quite often find that I get a bloom with Klear owing to humidity. Generally speaking it disappears with a second coat.

IFR = Instrument Flight Rules. As for the probe, we convinced the Spams that the probe on Albert was a cannon. I have photo's of the mock up somewhere.

Please don't call it an IFR probe, it's an AAR probe. For those of us that fly IFR means something completely different!

It's an MG TF

Generally speaking by the time RAFG Buccs got the AiM9 they would carry the AN/ALQ101 on the opposite outboard.

Coming off the apex of Paddock Hill Bend at Brands Hatch in the wet at around 120mph (190kph) accelerating...

It's called having 'taste'.