Page 302 - Demo

298was turning finals the opposite way. A certain amount of counting was required.There is a gap in my logbook for the autumn of 1994 and I believe that this was caused by a technical problem with the Tucano. I think a problem arose with cracking in the rudder which meant that we ran out of aircraft. Some students and a couple of QFIs were sent out to Australia to carry on training. That was thought to be a real perk but actually the students were treated as raw recruits in Australia which did not go down well with our students, many of whom had come through the UASs. Anyway, by the end of the year it must have been sorted as we were busy again. In 1995 we went to Vicenza in Italy via Dijon. We had procedural instrument ratings now and so could fly down the Civilian Airways legally. This was simple if you were on your own but a bit more problematic in formation. I remember we lost the leader on one of the frequency changes and had to get them to write down the frequency on a piece of paper and hold it up for us to see. The civilian Air Traffickers did not really realise that our callsign represented 2 or 3 aircraft and so formation flying in airways always confused ATC. Each time we changed frequency; we would all check in with the leader. So, he would call %u201cVenus check%u201d and this would be followed by calls of Venus2,3. Venus was one of our Squadron callsigns, but to ATC would not understand that they were talking to several aircraft and not just one. The first nightwe stayed in Vicenza. One of the QFIs had been based there for a bit and knew the proprietor of a lovely restaurant. There was no menu, but he just cooked what he had which was delicious. The second day I think that we went to Venice for the night by train. We more or less pretended to be escaping RAF aircrew for the train journey. All very childish. When we got back, our accounts section were very upset about this