Page 193 - Demo

189big room and all the older children slept in a heap in another room while the youngest were in cots elsewhere. As part of the holiday, Paul filmed the children going to the bat cave. This was filmed over a couple of days and while the actors took some controlling at times and the tears flowed in the heat, that film is a very much cherished part of our lives. I cannot remember if I was formally retoured but one day in in 1981 John Halstead approached me and asked if I would like to go to Exam Wing. Professionally that was a big step up. And I agreed to be a Trapper. Basic Squadron Examination Wing was tasked with checking on the standards of flying training at the Basic Flying Training Schools at Cranwell, Linton and Church Fenton, and refresher flying school at Leeming all flying JPs. Also, the standards of flying training at all the University Air Squadrons on Bulldogs plus the Air Experience flights flying Chipmunks. We also had to check the competence of instructors teaching at civilian flying schools that had a contract with the Ministry of Defence. We also had to check on the waterfront squadrons as well. Exam wing had contracts to check various other flying training schools around the world and so there was a possibility of getting some overseas visits. One of our main functions was to ward A2 categories and Instrument Rating Examiner (IRE) categories. I started a conversion to the Bulldog with the waterfront Bulldog Squadron but this had to fit in with JP flying and in fact I very quickly spent a week trapping at Linton. Nobody liked flying with us but actually we tried hard to be constructive and chaps often found it was not as bad as they expected. We flew with QFIs and students and even though we were really there to observe standards, we would correct errors where we could and give them a certain amount of instruction during the sorties. I was not an IRE and had of course to fly a full profile before becoming a CIRE (Command IRE who can award IRE qualifications). I flew this with John Halstead and he decided that rather than fly the standard 2