From the way I’ve been talking you probably think that Joe
Pearson was the only idiot in air traffic control, but no, there were
others. Take the senior air traffic
controller for example, the SATCO, he was a bit of a dick, and that’s being
kind to him. Like most of the rest of
the UK when it snows, the air force grinds to a standstill and then panics. Being the military there was always a station
action plan and even a dedicated team on standby to put that dastardly plan
into action. Unfortunately one of my new
duties would be to take my turn on the snow clearing detail. Probably the only time in your life you would
hold your breath for a week and pray that it didn’t snow.
You wouldn’t know any of the other people in the team and had
to report for a briefing on the day your period of duty started. Some of us didn’t bother turning up for the
briefing, not because we had been there, seen the movie, read the book and ate
the stew, but because it was boring. I
mean just how difficult is it to use a shovel?
I took my chances and stayed away.
As luck would have it, it started to snow and we were propelled into
action. I arrived at the hangar and gave
the engineering officer a damn good listening to, for not being at the
briefing. I was then told to dress up
warm and fire up the beast.
There is a sort of lovely eccentricity when people put
aircraft engines into vehicles. The most
notorious was a fellow called John Dodd who had a Rolls Royce motor car with a
Merlin aircraft engine in it. It was road legal and although it could hit speeds
of one hundred and eighty miles per hour the twenty seven litre engine only
gave a return of two miles to the gallon.
Dodd’s roller would fade in comparison to the toy I had been given to
play with, the beast. Two jet engines
strapped to a fuel bowser, so you didn’t have to worry about running out of
petrol. From a distance it looked quite
impressive, but once you got up close and personal with it you could see that
it looked as if it had been made in someone’s garden shed.
I doubt very much if the health and safety bods these days
would let these machines loose as ‘dangerous’ is the first word that springs to
mind when you consider one of these beasts.
However as a boy, the next word that springs to mind is ‘great bit of
fun.’ Someone would drive the fuel bowser
you ‘the operator’ would sit between the two jet engines and manoeuvre the nozzle. It was very like defrosting a fridge with a
hairdryer, except on a massive scale. As
you may expect it was quite noisy and very unsafe. Someone had cobbled together a makeshift cabin
from wood and Perspex to protect the operator from the elements, a three inch
thick steel box might have been more appropriate to provide some protection
from the jet engine either side of your head.
I said, to provide some protection from the jet engine either side of
your head! Yeah, fecking noisy.
It was great fun and took some time to master because you
could lift slabs of ice and propel them twenty yards away and if you pushed the
nozzles down too far you could melt the runway, destroy runway lights and anything
else that got in the way. They were
known as MRD’s, Machine Runway De-icer although in our hands they were known as
Machine Runway Destroyers. The best way to
clear snow is an airman and a shovel. It’s
fine melting snow with jet engines, but every year people are amazed that the melted
snow, turns in to water, which freezes and turns into ice! Who would have expected that? So, it’s snowing quite heavily in fact. The Senior Air Traffic Controller, the SATCO,
comes in and asks who is in charge of the shift. Ce moi!
He then tells me to take everyone outside and clear the snow
from the car park. No one is allowed to
drive onto the airfield because not only is it dangerous, but it compacts the snow,
so I don’t see the point of clearing the car park, one, as no one can use it
and two, it was still snowing. Why not
wait until it stops snowing and then we can clear it. The SATCO wasn’t in the mood for an honest
and sensible discussion, I was to do as I was told, get my men outside and
clear the bloody car park. I would say
that there was a certain amount of hyper fecundity in his behaviour so I took
my men outside before the situation got out of hand. As I came onto the car park I noticed that the
SATCO had ignored station standing orders and had driven his car to air traffic
and it was now parked in the area I had been ordered to clear.
I took the same approach as one would when painting a floor,
except my exit point was the SATCO’s car.
We had a laugh clearing the snow but I had the team pile it around the
SATCO’s car, making sure that he was stuck and that the next time he wanted to
put his girly head on when talking to me he might think twice. It was quite a ridiculous exercise, known to
us as ‘make work.’ To have men sitting around
idle was considered dangerous as they might realise that their bosses were idiots
and revolt, so jobs were invented to keep people busy. The only time I ever heard of this going
wrong was in the Falklands when one team were detailed to empty a tent, take
the tent down and then put it up across the road and put the equipment back in.
It was a young army officer who was in charge of this lot and
on the third day, very biblical, but on the third day they stabbed him. I often came quite close to stabbing the
SATCO, metaphorically of course, I wouldn’t hurt a fly. Usually the cause of this would be the marching
idiot Joe Pearson. It was assessment
time. I had already caused a storm as a
wee girl had come in asking for me. She
asked me to come to an office where she could give me my assessments. There were a lot of young pretty girls in air
traffic control and some of them were female.
I went straight to the SATCO who explained that this young female girl
officer needed to get some experience so she was giving me my assessment.
I carefully explained to the SATCO that I was on a mission to
get promoted and would only accept my assessment from a Warrant Officer. The assessment had been completed so it
really didn’t matter who read it out to me, but I felt that my career was
important and the assessments should be treated as such. I got my wish and had my assessments presented
to me by a Warrant Officer who told me he thought I would go far, shame that wasn’t
written in the assessment. It was like exam
result day at school with everyone asking what did you get, what did you get, referring
to your numerical assessment. One being
the lowest, five average, and eight the top grade, with nines being a special
recommendation for promotion.
I don’t think anyone was really interested in your performance
but more in gauging their performance by comparing their numerical assessment against
yours. Joe, I’m a fecking idiot, Pearson
came bumbling out of the SATCO’s office after his assessment interview and
seemed to be pretty pleased with himself.
“How did it go?” I asked. “What
did you get?” “Nines,” said Joe. “I got a spec rec.” I think the SATCO was used to me bursting
into his office. It was all very
calm. I asked in a very simple and straightforward
way how on Gods earth did Joe Pearson get nines, a special recommendation for
promotion. I added that not only was the
man an idiot, although in his defence I have to admit that he was an idiot of
the highest calibre, but everyone on camp, even the Station Commanders dog knew
that Joe Pearson was an idiot.
Everyone knew the man was useless and to award him a higher
grade than I had got, I think I was batting around sevens, was an insult and
made a mockery of the assessment system.
The SACTO explained that his predecessor had given Joe eights and nines. So he had no option but to award the same
grades. If he awarded Joe what he
deserved, which we both agreed should be around two, and that’s being generous,
but if the SATCO had actually awarded Joe what he deserved then he would be
calling into question the decision of his predecessor, a brother officer, and
that just wasn’t done. So as you can
see, the quest I had set for myself wasn’t a plain and simple road that I could
gently travel along. I wasn’t going to
have a Rolls Royce with a Merlin engine to power me from one end to the other;
instead I was going to be moving tents from one side to the other for some time
to come and try not to stab the idiots who were springing up all around me.
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