Page 67 - Demo

67Preparing No 18 Sqn%u2019s, then very new, Chinooks for deployment to theSouth Atlantic was Odiham%u2019s top priority.personnel generation were well under way within 48 hours of theinvasion, as Tony Stables will tell in his account of No 18 Sqn%u2019s war.Unambiguously, the station regarded support for the Chinookdeployment as its most important task, even if others in the chain ofcommand sometimes had other priorities. It is amusing now to recall thatpreparations for a royal visit (and, in the cases of Lyneham andWittering, for a formal AOC%u2019s Parade and Inspection), competed for theattention of people who really were earning their keep. However, theannouncement of a pay award of 8% on 7 May was timely!Work was immediately started to accelerate aircraft generation. Forexample, a Puma 300-hour servicing that would normally have takenfour weeks was being turned round in less than four days in ASF where24 hour working had begun immediately. That No 33 Sqn would be sentsouth along with the Chinooks seemed as likely as it was logical, giventhe Puma%u2019s capabilities. In broad terms, it offered almost twice theperformance of the Wessex. In the absence of authorisation, work wasset in hand to modify the Puma, to provide blade fold and suitable tiedown points for deck operation. By the time formal authorisation wasgiven, it would have been too late to complete the work in time for theintended deployment date.Much new ground was broken in terms of the equipment of both types.