Re: Nostalgia dreams
"I swear that sometimes the RAF pilots firewalled the throttles and yanked the nose up just so they could punish poor pongos as their livers were garrotted by seatbelts ..."
The occasional (unsure exactly how often it was needed) vigorous leap into the sky was very much a requirement for the VC-10 in the RAF procedures - probably to give the engines a workout. My dad was a navigator on them and described a time when they were stationed at another airfield, where the residents were described as "a bunch of fucking arseholes", or words to that effect. The morning of departure was after a particularly heavy night (for those not about to fly) and one of the pilots mentioned that the aircraft hadn't had a full-power take-off in a while. Fortunately, the airfield's layout allowed a fairly close flypast of the mess, giving them the benefit of four Rolls-Royce Conways at full throttle to start their day.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
