If you listen closely - you can hear the pilots bum twitching like a rabbits nose. That's a fantastic picture of heroism.
Reminds me of a Harrier I saw back in the mid 1990's in Turkey. Some Kurdish bloke got few rounds off with his AK47 as the jet went over him somewhere in northern Iraq. It punched a few holes in the wings and tail and also the canopy which caused it to shatter having set off the detonator cord. The jet limped back with a very windswept jockey badly in need of emergency underwear transplant surgery, (I've never seen a sticky brown flying suit before). The ground tech crew chief looked at the damage and said something like "no problem we can patch it up and fit a new canopy in no time but, we'll need a tanker of Dettol and Fabreeze to sort out the 'bang' seat". True to his word, the jet was back in the air two days later, unlike the jockey who was flown back home for a nice cup of tea, medals and a lie down in a quiet dark room and never to be seen again.
Certainly was Big Lad, but, only as a reservist for 22 years never, full time. Joined as an Airman and ended up as Squadron Warrant Officer. I was based in Norfolkshire most of the time near Norwich and then near Kings Lynn and I even got a detachment up in the far end of Scotia with the dear departed Nimrod fleet (another jolly to Spamland). During my time I did a fair few jolly trips to Germany, Norway, Canada, Denmark and of course the good old US of A, (got out and about on a Road Glide on that trip too). Did my bit between the Gulf Wars in Turkey and Kuwait keeping an eye on Saddman Insane and his boys. Then called up for Gulf War 2 and spent the first 3 months at the Yank CENTCOM HQ in Tampa Bay, back to Kuwait then on to Basrah, (to work with some blokes from Hereford). Also gawd knows how many trips to the joint air base in Qatar then my last trip to the 'Ghan' for three months in 08. Can't tell you too much about what I did coz I'd have to kill you but I saw everything from 20,000ft on video tape and was able to help loads of the guys on the ground by telling them where the bad guys were and what they were up to. Happy days, miss the guys and the job but not the admin bull$h!t that went with it.
Wow that's a full sack of experiences Sceptic, thanks very much for sharing. A pal of mine is struggling a bit after coming out of the 'mob', so how was it for you re-joining civvy street full time?
I a few words, bloody hard work. Once you get home it takes a bit of time to 'de-compress' especially if you had a couple of 'experiences' like I had, took me a while to watch things like Black Hawk Down etc and, folks who have never been, seen or done can't understand that thanks to our wonderful politicians such $h!t happens. I found that if you dig in and crack on it helps but it is still a struggle.
