Page 74 - Demo

70we taxied in. If it was emptied in flight the liquid went over the tail lookout position which made it dirty. As we were refuelling and turning the aircraft round the Station Commander came out to see us and check that we had all we needed for SAR. Obviously not only were we on standby now but so was his station. For some reason the urinal had not been emptied as we taxied in but now one of the siggies opened the drain cock. The Station Commander noticed that there was fluid draining out of the aircraft and asked what it was. Just some wastewater from the galley he was told and off he went as a large yellow stain spread out from under the aircraft. In March we had to take an aircraft down to Gibraltar. Another Squadron was exercising down there and for some reason had gone without their aircraft. The plan was to take off at midnight to arrive at lunchtime. The standard route to Gibraltar was to go North to go around Scotland then out into the Atlantic to weather ship J which was in the mid-Atlantic somewhere and then down to Gibraltar. We briefed at 2200hrs and I went and did the external checks and found an hydraulic leak that needed to be fixed. As a result, we did not take off until 0200. We had worked the day before on the Squadron just having the afternoon off to rest. Wg Cdr Dewer had decided to come with us as it was a bit of a jolly. Anyway, I did the take off and flew for the first couple of hours when Steve took over. He had been dozing in the right hand seat up till then with Dewer asleep down the back on the bunk. I then did another 2 hour shift and just after I had changed seats with Steve, Dewer appeared and said to Steve that he must be tired and to go and rest, which he did. Dewer then got in the left hand seat and flew for a bit. With him on board I had to stay alert and not doze. After 2 hours, I got back into the left hand seat for a further 2 hours by the end of which I was shattered. On a transit it was normal to doze in the right hand seat but not with the boss on board. On various sorties I can remember being the only person awake when flying at night. Eventually someone would