CCF Camp BZN

I spent a week at RAF Brize Norton recently with the Combined Cadet Force RAF Section from work. I had a great time but more importantly all of the cadets we took had a good time. We were very busy and it was extremely tiring but I got so much from it.

Here’s a list of things that we did (mostly because I can’t be bothered to compose prose for this):

  • 5.56 shooting at the outdoor range. After over twenty years of not shooting a weapon I was very happy with my twenty shot grouping.
  • Grob Tutor air experience flying with 6 AEF at RAF Benson.
  • RAF Section Visits to:
    • Air Traffic Control
    • Fire
    • Armoury
    • JADTEU
    • 47 Air Despatch
    • Survival Equipment
    • SERE
    • Dog Handling
    • DMTS
    • Support Eng Flight
    • XXIV Squadron
    • Parachute Training School
  • DCCT – I managed to pass my RAF shooting test with a score of 65/75
  • Low Ropes
  • High Ropes
  • Laser Target Practice
  • Ten Pin Bowling

The Officers’ Mess was a delight and a wonderful building that overlooked the runway about half way along. My only problem was that the Friday of camp was the Officers’ Summer Ball and while my room overlooked the runway it also was directly above the bar and next to the funfair that was set up for the ball. That night I slept in the cadets billet as a supervisor rather than not sleep in my room in the mess.

Here’s a selection of photographs I took during the week. I can’t share some of the really cool stuff we saw because it’s covered by the OS Act.

Transformers: Age Of Extinction

I went to see this at the cinema last night. It was the first time I had seen a film in about two months due to commitments elsewhere. Over at IMDB I rated this film a 4/10. Go to this page to see what that means.

Overall, I just got fed up with this film. I was quite happy with the first hour of the film. It was a Michael Bay film and so I wasn’t expecting much. I’m not a massive Transformers fan and I wasn’t excited about this film but it was something to see. This film was 165 minutes long and after the first 60 I felt every minute of the remaining CGI fest. This film could have been 2 hours long and much better for it. It suffered from what Phil Plait calls “too-much-stuffism“.

The characters were two dimensional. The story line was fantastical. The acting was poor. Kelsey Grammer was pretty good but Stanley Tucci was absolutely over the top and brilliant he was the only high point of the film apart from a gratuitous top-of-the-legs-shot of Nicola Peltz. This isn’t really a film I’d show my children eventually as once you’ve seen one battle between Transformers you have pretty much seen them all, there wasn’t anything that stood out as new or different.

While I was writing this I had a lovely idea of a sentence to end this communication.