Adam Elsdon

But has the theft been reported to the Police, modern policing is partly done on intelligence based work, if you dont tell them, then they dont know, and they cant form a pattern and take out the offenders permanently. Unfortunately it involves a bit more than a few more visible foot patrols these days to catch the criminals.

damn my typing! it was 1997! however the bit about it being broken in 99 isnt exactly right, they were stripping parts off of it almost straight away, i remember it lying in what was known as the trailer/caravan park, rapidly diminishing, i should imagine it was "officially" written off in 1999 i left Brize Norton in September 99, and by then it was pretty much only a fuselage and not alot of that either!

Try "Greygate plastic polish" it is the stuff that the RAF use for canopies, i was told by somebody while i was in service that toothpaste, T-Cut and metal polishes are exceptionally bad for plastic, as the chemicals get into the substrate of the plastic and make it brittle. The NATO Stock number is 7930-99-224-2028, but if you are a normal human!! go to www.cpc.co.uk they sell it, just do a search for plastic polish. I have recently used some to rescue a 20 yr old caravans windows, which looked like new by the time i finished, and it does a very good job on plastic headlight lenses and light cluster units.

Following on from the Vulcan undercarriage accident thread, here is one i personally witnessed, certainly the immediate aftermath anyway! It was on RAF Brize Norton, December 2007 and the last day before everybody knocked off for the Christmas holidays, so spirits were high, as we were leaving our hangar to get our cars, alarms were sounding across Brize Norton and all of the emergency vehicles were charging across the field towards the base hangar area. It was a very foggy afternoon, and the light was disappearing fast, but a very unusual sight greeted us, the front end of a VC10 rearing up through the fog, and it wasnt moving! It turned out it had a fuel leak, and to check it out they filled all the tanks to make sure everything was rectified. Now there was a procedure to defuel them down, it involved carrying out a manual check of the tanks and then the fin tank would be emptied first followed by the fuselage tanks and then the wing tanks. What actually happened was the individual responsible decided to trust the panel fuel guages, not knowing the fin tank guage had a problem and read a constant zero, ah empty he thought! The fuselage tanks were emptying and then the obvious happened, the aircraft became tail heavy, crashing down onto its rear fuselage. Rumour had it that two people were on board at the time, one person in the cockpit landed up in the tail end of the aircraft, falling through the plane, and hurting themselves quite badly, requiring a rescue, made more dangerous by the aircraft sitting in a pool of its own fuel, the fuel hose disengaging when the aircraft shifted. The aircraft was a write off! there was enough force to bend the airframe and make it beyond economical repair, it was dragged off to one side of the airfield where it was later canabilised for spares. And there was worse, the station manning was dependant on aircraft numbers, so potentially one less aircraft, a whole heap less personnell were required to service it! so there was alot of admin shuffling trying to keep people in post rather than have to post them to another station. Hell to pay!!! Anyway i found a picture of the incident! there is less fog in the picture, but there is still evidence of fire fighting foam around the rear of the aircraft to cover the spilt fuel.

Those are excellent pictures Alan! any pictures of Pigs when in service are quite rare, (i know i spend alot of time searching, which is how i came across your website!) but photos from the production line are really the hens teeth, and very informative, the production methods employed etc, marvellous stuff. Thank you for posting this.

No about right, you have a bunch of blokes who are trained to take the fight to the enemy, they have no fear of fighting and actively look forward to it, generally the problems come when civvies get involved, they dont expect the intensity or levels of aggression.

The purists arent footing the fuel bill!! And as you say SU carbs are nice to work with.

I remember one Saturday night on RAF Brize Norton, there was alot of Parachute training going on and every service seemed to be on camp, your usual RAF boys, RAF Regiment, baby Paras on their first jump training, older Paras on refresher jumps, Royal Marines and Gurkhas. Just put them in the NAAFI bop (disco), add plenty of alcohol and throw in local girls which werent too shy, a complete recipe for disaster. the place was totalled, a fight broke out between a Marine and a Para, the room divided into gangs of various units, and then the place was torn apart. People were literally flying through the air, thrown into the bar, the RAF police turned up and brought a dog, the handler and dog went out of a window, it was a bar brawl of epic proportions. Monday morning everybody was busy on parade, getting shouted at!

I have been harbouring a thought to do something a bit more epic to raise money for Help for Heroes, i have been collecting for the last year, but think i could do alot better! now if you could please stick with this, and give me your thoughts, any suggestions and ideas to further such an event would be much appreciated. What started it was reading about a rally, the website is : www.h4hrally.co.uk To cut it short, it is a number of teams that pay entrance to drive around the wartime sites of Europe following the D-Day invasion routes and ending in Berchtesgaden, Hitlers eagles nest. I like it!! however when i started thinking it through, i could never manage it, time/money and other issues, also i would like to use my own Military vehicle, that alone would cost serious money, and then there is the reliability issues, what if it breaks down.......and the list goes on. Then there was the reason why i would be doing it in the first place, none of those problems help raising money for H4H, so why worry about them. So my plan is this, organise a Military vehicle charity driving event that encompasses the British isles, but doesnt require individuals to lose a big chunk of their time and personal wealth! keep it in country where the charity is well known, and keep it simple and fun, it shouldnt have a weight of historic importance dragging it down. A military vehicle "Relay Run" passing an object for example a Teddy from one MV group to another group between towns and cities, raising money on the way, individuals can drive as far as they feel they can manage, at each Rendesvous Point, meet up with the next custodian of the Teddy bear, while the teams are waiting, they can rattle a tin and raise money, the team that hands over can then carry on that money raising. Take in town centres on the way make a spectacle of it and raise money on the way through. ANY type of military vehicle is eligible, and that includes boats and planes. It is in no way a race, almost the opposite. It should encompass all MV groups up and down the country, they can use it to promote the MV club if they like, and i would envisage it taking a number of weeks to complete, the teddy/object could then be raffled, after accumulating a large amount of miles and vehicle types in its "Logbook". So what do you think, any tweeks that would help it flow, or keep it easy and cheap to work, please let me know!!:idea:

Is it still on the go? i havent seen it in any of the shops i used to buy it from.

Thats the same vehicle that Michael Caine playing an Irish guards officer in the Film "A Bridge Too Far" is commanding his troops from, i thought it was a Dingo, then realised it is bigger and not so square looking. Nice looking machine.

You still have your plate on the draw bar, here is mine for comparison:- Trailer Cargo 1 Ton 2 WH Brockhouse Veh No: 18 EN 91, Chassis No: BT8/18190, Cont No: WV2037 Notice yours still has its brass "U/L CofG" (Unladen centre of gravity) plates, which seem to have disappeared on others i have seen. Mine was later converted to the catchy sounding: Power Plant Elec 2-3.5 KVA 120/240V S/P 50 C/S No.1 Mk2 Trailer 1 Ton. And it was used by the Royal Signals. Now i have removed a small bucket load of little brackets and widgets that would of held the two generators and exhaust system in/on the trailer, and it mainly looks like the original G.S. trailer.

Austin where did you find that Black and White picture with the Pigs and K9s with 1 ton trailers, pictures of Pigs with a trailer are a rare thing! Anyway here is a not so rare picture of my Pig with Brockhouse 1 ton trailer, i bought it ex MOD release from Anchor Supplies in Nottingham, at a real bargain price, just a bit of work to clean it up and give it a coat of paint and its a cracker of a trailer.

Spoke to Croc, the paint he has is indeed 224 DBG, the confusion came with people thinking it is Landrover Bronze Green which is quite different. I am now wiser to the ways of AFS painting!! If anyone knows what colour Blue the Home Office Police Column Gipsys were painted, (I have one that has been civvied) that would be appreciated!

Excuse the previous post i had finger trouble! here is the current BS381C chart, note that this has changed a few times over the years, so if you are ordering paint, make sure it is the same code as the modern chart!!! http://www.stephen.hull.btinternet.co.uk/bs381c.html By the way, the AFS colour isnt Deep Bronze Green, they used something else, Croc on this forum knows what it is, as he has a tin of matching paint for his AFS Gipsy, he has an ex AFS Bedford RL as well, and all the shades of green are slightly different.

Here are the colour codes for the Various Greens probably found on your Landrover:- BS381C 224 Deep Bronze Green BS381C 298 Olive Drab BS381C 285 NATO Green It would of left Land Rover painted Deep Bronze Green, if it was then painted Camouflage to tone it down, it would of been Olive Drab then after 1974, it would of been painted NATO green, which became the standard camouflage green colour, Clive Elliott has done a series of painting articles in Clives Corner of this forum, all about this.

Jessie, if you look in the background under the Spitfires starboard wing, taxiing past the Red Arrows :cool2: you will see the Chinook that went unserviceable that should of turned up at your show. So there you have it, the power of HMVF, bringing you something in the present, that happened in the past! :-D

Paul PM sent.

No, the Chinook was fired up and doing its pre-flight checks when a problem became apparent, so they shut it down and left it where it sat for the rest of the day.

And my personal favourite photographs that i took from the weekend;

The Vulcan, Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, numerous Spitfires and warbirds, lots of modern jets Typhoon, Gripen, Mig 29 and F16's, the more vintage jets such as the Meteor and Venom and the Navys Seahawk all in the flying display.

Some of the Aircraft at the show

Just some of the exhibits, the Auster AOP in the previous picture is a non flying example which has been restored and is stripped and set up for shows complete with aircrew, jeep and other re-enactors demonstrating equipment to the public.

For one day only, the RAF Leuchars airshow was held on Saturday 12 September 2009 and was open to MV owners with prior arrangement in advance. Myself and my mate Stuart who owns a 1952 Dodge M37 drove down the night before and stopped at the "Secret Nuclear Bunker" http://www.secretnuclearbunker.com/index.html The museum owner has something to do with a serving RAF member at Leuchars and opens up the bunkers dormitory for overnight accommodation, which is great, especially as it is a very early start to get in before the punters start turning up! they also have it open the next night so if you have some distance to drive on the Sunday, you can stop over and get a nights rest, which is great. Unfortunately i didnt arrive till late, so didnt see all of the bunker, but it is a great facility in original order. The Airshow was tremendous, the weather which in the previous couple of years had been appalling, was the total opposite, clear skies a light breeze and very warm. For those who managed to get in and pre-registered, it was free meals all day courtesy of the Delta mess on station, a big thank you to the RAF who put that on! A superb event with the added bonus of a great airshow, all for the price of some personal effort and fuel money to get there. Now for a few photos i took at the show:

I was in the TSSC some years ago, always thought it a good idea, as far as i know it hasnt caused problems for those listed. Im only a short distance from Croc, but if anybody needs a hand i'd be up for it, especially as we have some unique heavy vehicles that could cost a fortune to recover/garage repair even if they manage it. As for the hire/reward you could help in the recovery as friends and settle up the difference at a later date.