"Nothing but the rain"
Had a lovely day trip to London Biggin Hill Airport today and got shown some amazing things. Private jets, small and large, helicopters, small and medium and then some second world war fighters, all small. It was a great day. I think I’m a little warm in the face from the sunshine though.
I think I’ve become a bit of a fan of helicopters. I used to only really enjoy aircraft with afterburners, maybe I’ve grown up a little?
I have just returned from a lovely week on summer camp at RAF Henlow. This is the third camps we’ve run there, mostly because it has a dedicated cadet block and we know our way around. We did plenty but we couldn’t do the usual Saturday through to Saturday as the block was booked by Beds and Cambs Wing [the gits], so we did Monday through to Sunday.
The week was your usual busy with the following taking place:
I had a great time. It was lovely to see Theresa again along with spending time away with the staff from our section. I spent the week driving around a Mercedes Sprinter Minibus which had light steering and very soft brakes. I almost went through the window when I got back in my own car!
I volunteered to help out at the RAFAC National Drill Finals. These are based at RAF Honington in Suffolk, not far from Thetford. I took on the role of competition announcer, my dulcet, cold affected voice echoed around the Jimmy James Hangar parade square on and off over the course of the day.
RAF Honington is home to the training of the RAF Regiment. If you don’t know what the Regiment do then they are a bit like the Infantry of the Army but in Blue. They provide Force Protection to RAF bases and personnel. In terms of a rather old but funny television show they are “double-hard bastards”.
The hanger is named after Bertram “Jimmy” James who was a member of the regiment and also one of the greatest POW escapees during the second world war.
I had a good day and it’ll be nice to go again and help out. I quite like being the only-CCF chap on these events. It gives an instant shock factor. We don’t normally do these things.
The finals has three competitions:
All six regions were represented along with the CCF as its own (massive) region.