Most elite or special units, in the armed forces, will have
some sort of initiation ritual. Normally,
as it is the armed forces, these are extreme.
For those of you who have read the tales from my mountain rescue days I
can promise you that at times you do actually wonder if you are going to
die. If you remember I said that there
were only two positions in the air force.
Fast jet pilot and failed fast jet pilot. The whole air force is geared to make sure
that the fast jet pilot is able to function effectively, nothing else matters.
As you may expect, as the most famous squadron in the air
force, 92 Squadron had a very special initiation ceremony. And as you may expect, from the most famous
of all squadrons, this initiation would be something exceptional, however, the
only people who had to face it were baby pilots. Baby pilot may give you the wrong idea about
new pilots arriving on the squadron, but that is what they were referred to
as. These guys would have been trained
to perfection and a baby pilot was a young pilot who would be taking up their
first operational role.
If you can imagine a fighter squadron may only get one baby
pilot every two years. The older, more experienced
pilots would be posted to other squadrons or sent to fly desks at the MOD. One of our navigators, Al Green, briefed me on
what was going to happen, and I can assure you I would not want to go through
what this poor fellow did. For three or
four days, before his arrival, we were asked to collect empty beer cans and empty
bottles of booze. Many of us were
smokers and even the contents of the ashtrays were collected.
On the day of his arrival we received a telephone call to say
that he was being interviewed by the station commander. Well; he thought he was being interviewed by
the station commander. He was actually
being interviewed by the families officer, who I believe wouldn’t stop talking about
his model railway collection and the suspicions he had that his wife was being
unfaithful and wasn’t at all interested in the young pilot. We were busy on the squadron. Ash trays were filled to overflowing, empty
cans and bottles were left everywhere and Al Green even sprayed a can of beer,
like an air freshener, to give the place that authentic public house smell.
The dentist came over and sat in the wing commanders officer
with a glass of whiskey. And so we
waited. In came this new pilot, Dom
Riley. He was as smart as a new
pin. He came to the desk and
saluted. Al Green, unkempt and unshaven,
took a slurp from his can of beer and asked what the fellow wanted. The new pilot explained himself, name, rank
and number reporting for duty. Al explained
that he was not interested. If he was
new on the squadron he should go and see the boss but if he wanted to fly he
should go see the engineers, if they had any aircraft that worked.
Poor Dom, still reeling from his mad interview with the family’s
officer, goes to meet his new squadron commander. Graham the dentist put on another show pretending
that he wasn’t interested but that the young fellow should go away and settle
into his room in the mess as he would go flying with him the following morning
to see if he was any good. Now I know if
I had arrived on a squadron, or a station, even as a newly qualified fighter pilot
and had been treated like that I would have been concerned.
That evening Dom was welcomed into the mess, with people
still pretending to be someone else. A
pretty young lady, pretending to be the station commander’s unfaithful wife, clamped
herself on to Dom saying that her husband didn’t satisfy her anymore and she
liked young fit pilots. Now add to this
mix lots and lots of very strong booze.
It was a total ploy to wrong foot the young fellow who woke up in a bed
the following morning with his right leg in a full plaster of Paris cast.
Unable to remember anything, the young pilot is now tortured
with tales of how he couldn’t fly with a broken leg, was no use to an
operational squadron and as he had tried to hump the station commander’s wife
the previous evening, he should return, immediately, to the UK in
disgrace. Within twenty four hours this
poor young man has gone from recently qualified fighter pilot to complete
failure with his life and career in tatters.
What he didn’t know was that they had taped two marbles
tightly against the bone of his leg and then encased it in plaster of Paris. No wonder Dom actually thought he had broken
his leg. It was only as he arrived at
the terminal to fly back to the UK that the squadron members revealed themselves
and welcomed him on to the squadron. That
is what happens to every freshly qualified fighter pilot when then arrive on
their first operational squadron.
Different squadrons will have their own variation on the process, but
the main thrust is the same all over the air force. You may think that young Dom Riley would
perhaps need many months, if not years, of psychological help to get over such
an event but Dom was a fighter pilot, and not just any fighter pilot, but a 92
squadron fighter pilot.
Did it affect him, I wouldn’t have thought so, in fact he
went on to join the Red Arrows formation display team and actually ended up as
the leader of the Red Arrows and I will not tell you what they did to new
members of the Red Arrows. For us, the oiks,
we faced nothing more rigorous than having to buy a crate of beer if you
spilled some of your drink. There was
always the standard shaving of eyebrows and drawing on faces. The most common
trick to play on people, was when someone fell asleep if tired, or more
commonly, when drinking.
If you ever walk in to an air force crew room you will
notice that they all have grey floor tiles.
You will also notice that there will often be a series of black marks,
resembling the tread off shoes and boots, all over the place. This is because if you fell asleep the
buggers would set alight to the soles of your shoes, or boots, and sit and
watch you twitch as the heat permeated through to your feet. Of course a certain point would be reached where
the heat would be enough to cause you pain and wake you up or bring you back to
consciousness. (Check the picture with this blog)
Once awake, or conscious, you would be drawn to the area of
pain and see twelve inch flames leaping from your shoes, or boots. Your natural reaction would be to jump up and
stamp out the flames, therefore leaving black rubber marks all over the
floor. Some people say that this is how Riverdance
was invented, I’m not sure, although there might be some truth in it.
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