Kinky_Pillick
Midshipman
Some of us are lucky still to be alive...... maimed, but alive. Got any tales of near death / leaps up the learning curve for us to chuckle at?
Eg.
The Fighter Controller’s symbol generator computer at VL tower in 1983 was a huge room size computer full of analogue switches and valves etc. All the components were wrapped around rectangular drawers that were slid out of the front fascia, remaining operational for adjustment. My tools were on the other side of one of the slid out drawers so I put my hand on top and reached across. I didn’t get the tools cos I was on my back having been blown there by the shock with all the 1950’s vintage resistors and capacitors imprinted on my hand. ‘Kin hurt that did!
or
I hung a soldering iron on the bench drawer handle then reached across it. Welded my crappy nylon mix 8’s trousers to my bollocks. ‘Kin hurt more that did!
or
Eagle base in Norway. I was chef and had filled, and spilled, a few days worth of cookers with naptha in the cold pit dug at the door of the 12X12. Early morning, the 7 or so sailors pretending to be booties are snug in their slugs on the dry hay strewn round the tent, so I get a brew on by the light of a cylume.
Just after the WHOOOMPH! And blinding flame, I could smell my eyebrows and see the tent doors are on fire…along with my gloved hands…..and the hay. The troops are awake but slugs are like straight jackets and the knife is hanging from the roof of the tent. The BCF just about coped as we all rolled through the hole cut by another knife in the back of the tent.
The booties were really sympathetic when we asked for a new tent…..not.
Sometime later, at night, I set a complete fir tree alight while the crew were in a shelter under it whilst trying to fill a Tilley lamp without letting it cool down. We were tactical at the time so I encountered some more booty sympathy. :roll:
I don’t know how I did 11 years.
KP
(Up late cos I broke my arm playing footy – It never ends!)
Eg.
The Fighter Controller’s symbol generator computer at VL tower in 1983 was a huge room size computer full of analogue switches and valves etc. All the components were wrapped around rectangular drawers that were slid out of the front fascia, remaining operational for adjustment. My tools were on the other side of one of the slid out drawers so I put my hand on top and reached across. I didn’t get the tools cos I was on my back having been blown there by the shock with all the 1950’s vintage resistors and capacitors imprinted on my hand. ‘Kin hurt that did!
or
I hung a soldering iron on the bench drawer handle then reached across it. Welded my crappy nylon mix 8’s trousers to my bollocks. ‘Kin hurt more that did!
or
Eagle base in Norway. I was chef and had filled, and spilled, a few days worth of cookers with naptha in the cold pit dug at the door of the 12X12. Early morning, the 7 or so sailors pretending to be booties are snug in their slugs on the dry hay strewn round the tent, so I get a brew on by the light of a cylume.
Just after the WHOOOMPH! And blinding flame, I could smell my eyebrows and see the tent doors are on fire…along with my gloved hands…..and the hay. The troops are awake but slugs are like straight jackets and the knife is hanging from the roof of the tent. The BCF just about coped as we all rolled through the hole cut by another knife in the back of the tent.
The booties were really sympathetic when we asked for a new tent…..not.
Sometime later, at night, I set a complete fir tree alight while the crew were in a shelter under it whilst trying to fill a Tilley lamp without letting it cool down. We were tactical at the time so I encountered some more booty sympathy. :roll:
I don’t know how I did 11 years.
KP
(Up late cos I broke my arm playing footy – It never ends!)
