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Post by shorty on Oct 20, 2008 18:57:59 GMT 12
Can anyone tell me what year was the last Boy Entrant Intake?
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Post by 14liney on Oct 24, 2008 6:33:48 GMT 12
Can anyone tell me what year was the last Boy Entrant Intake? My course was #23 intake in 66 and I have an idea that we were #1 Airman Cadet Course and will poke around in my files to check that. 21 BES was in 1964-I got this from the Old Friends site.
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Post by shorty on Oct 24, 2008 12:42:13 GMT 12
I presume that in this PC age the Airman Cadet Scheme is no more? If so, when was the last lot of them?
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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 24, 2008 13:48:45 GMT 12
I don't think it existed in my time when I joined in January 1989.
Is this the scheme where you joined up and suffered the GSTS torture for a full year without any cigarettes or booze and no contact with the WAAF's before you moved onto trade training? My cousin did that in the late 1970's sometime, and I spoke to a few people when i was in the RNZAF who'd gone through it, telling us we young people didn't know we were born...
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Post by 14liney on Oct 25, 2008 6:14:09 GMT 12
Is this the scheme where you joined up and suffered the GSTS torture for a full year without any cigarettes or booze and no contact with the WAAF's before you moved onto trade training? That's pretty much it in a nutshell but I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. I am still in contact with people from my course in 1966 due to the shared experiences and esprit de corp generated by the school. Guys from my flight have become successful businessmen and one is an Air New Zealand captain so some good has come from all that training and discipline.We had a great 40th reunion in 2006 with about 75% of the guys attending.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 25, 2008 17:26:17 GMT 12
We found some of the secret hidey holes and tunnel entrances in the barracks left over from your days, from places where cigarettes were hidden in the wall panels and one of the tunnels alledgedly went all the way to the WAAFery before it got discovered.
So was it a year of just basic training or did it include technical training too? With GSTS and 4TTS we did seven months all together. I'm still in touch with many of the guys and girls from my course too. There's definately nothing else like it.
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Post by 14liney on Oct 26, 2008 9:09:45 GMT 12
So was it a year of just basic training or did it include technical training too? With GSTS and 4TTS we did seven months all together. I'm still in touch with many of the guys and girls from my course too. There's definately nothing else like it. Don't know about the tunnel to the Waafery but it sounds like a good idea!! We did the usual weapons training (rifle and bren), field craft, nuclear, chemical and biological warfare and so on plus basic engineering at 4TTS. After boys school we went our separate ways for technical training, I went to 2TTS.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 26, 2008 12:13:18 GMT 12
So basicly it was similar to what we did but ours was 7 months total whereas yours was 12. And those who smoked were allowed to on our course.
I remember in the first week we were told it was a democratic decision for smokers to be allowed to smoke in the GSTS dormitory. We had 4 smokers out of 16 in the dorm so no smoking inside. By the end of the 12 weeks there were 12 out of the 16 smoking! Stress apparently. I was one of the four not to be so damned silly.
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Post by phil on Oct 26, 2008 20:37:29 GMT 12
You can't even smoke in your own private room in barracks. Which is good, nothing worse than moving into a room after it had been occupied by a smoker.
At GSTS is was strictly verboten to smoke inside, and I was there in '96.
As part of the smoke free workplace act there are only certain places on each base you can smoke anyway - essentially each unit has a designated outdoor area and that's it.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 26, 2008 21:26:34 GMT 12
I agree it's good. I went through GSTS in Jan-Mar 1989 and they stopped smoking there in the barracks around two years later when some sort of health and safety inspection deemed that all the polish on the floor was a fire hazard, and they apparently (we heard through the inter-base gossip in 1991 or 1992) carpeted the barracks to eliminate the fire risk. I don't know if that's true because I never went back there. Doesn't make much sense though.
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Post by phil on Oct 26, 2008 21:52:04 GMT 12
No, GSTS barracks (CRTS now) wasn't carpeted in '96, and I don't think it is now.
All the other WB barracks are though, so it may have been the other trainee barracks that were being referred to.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 26, 2008 22:20:22 GMT 12
Thanks Phil, you know what base gossip is like when it filters from one base to another. Usually inaccurate.
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Post by 14liney on Oct 27, 2008 9:23:45 GMT 12
My first attempt at posting a photo. 3 airman cadets at Dip Flat 1966. Great equipment don't you think!!
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Post by 14liney on Oct 27, 2008 9:31:03 GMT 12
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Post by shorty on Oct 27, 2008 10:47:53 GMT 12
Cool! I recognise Shorty Cullen and John Herd (what on earth is he wearing?)
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Post by 14liney on Oct 27, 2008 11:15:35 GMT 12
Cool! I recognise Shorty Cullen and John Herd (what on earth is he wearing?) That is his #3 dress blues jacket inside out. Also in the photo is Des Grant with Glen Blomfield in the background.
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Post by phil82 on Oct 27, 2008 14:56:52 GMT 12
It did make sense actually Dave! All that polish made for a highly flammable situation because when heated it gave off a gas which supported combustion; wool carpets don't!
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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 27, 2008 15:17:51 GMT 12
Yes I see the sense in it, it just seemed odd that GSTS would mollycoddle new recruits with carpets as opposed to new lino. It seems the rumour was wrong.
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Post by shorty on Oct 27, 2008 15:33:46 GMT 12
We used to use big dollops of that floor wax (which came in 1 gallon cans) to boost up the pot belly stoves which were around the place. The one in 14s crew room also went good if you soaked the coke in Avtur before feeding it in and then poked an air hose in the bottom. Red heat was easily achieved!
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Post by 14liney on Oct 28, 2008 7:01:04 GMT 12
We used to use big dollops of that floor wax (which came in 1 gallon cans) to boost up the pot belly stoves which were around the place. The one in 14s crew room also went good if you soaked the coke in Avtur before feeding it in and then poked an air hose in the bottom. Red heat was easily achieved! Shinio was great too. I don't know why that place didn't burn down.
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