Tonights (21st March) "Airforce"

[turboNZ]

Now if I get this wrong I'm going to get bagged again..... ;D......but it looks like tonight's episode is the RNZAF bringing back the Unknown Soldier from France.

Could be quite a moving episode.


TNZ

[Dave Homewood]

Well, last night I saw the advert stating that it was about pilot, training and it showed much cool footage of CT4E's. But what happened to the episode advertised for last week about the two RNZAF peacekeepers on the Golan Heights?

TVNZ has royally screwed up their publicity on this series. Last week I saw two different ads for the same night, the Middle East one and the Survival camp one.

Don't worry Chris, if you're wrong, it isn't your fault. So long as they play them all I am happy. I am still trying to get the first episode on tape which I missed

Hmmm, there appears to be no mad smileys

[Dave Homewood]

Cool - tonight's is about Exercise Wise Owl, one of the best piss up's I've ever been on!!

[turboNZ]

Quite good watching, nice pics......but.....

3 things stood out for me tonight:-

1. The instructor wearing glasses. Does the RNZAF not have a 20:20 uncorrected eyesight requirement ?

2. The support staff firing full auto of the Steyrs. This is a no-no, but they mentioned that anyway which was good.

3. Now this is a beauty !!!!
WHAT WAS WITH THE "TURBINE" SOUND OF THE SIOUX STARTING ?
Now they are flat-6 piston-engined powered AFAIK.
Am I missing something ??

I know I should stop complaining...but this is a forum for discussion init...

TNZ

[Dave Homewood]

That was a great episode (I thought). I loved the flying sequences at the end with the tail chase.

It brought back a lot of memories of the Wise Owl I went on back in May 1993, which was at Wanaka. That was great fun.

My role on the exercise was brilliant. They always took along people from the squadron (PTS) that were needed like aircraft techs, avionics guys and safety and surface guys (my trade) plus all the ancillary people needed for a camp like cooks, drivers, medics, security, etc. And then they always took a handful of other guys as extras, to do the fatigues. I think there were ten or twelve of us, and one was me. Three others were also Safety and Surface so we were all mates.

We never did anything so military as have gas attacks or perimeter intruders though, as seen in this show. For us, it was largely a holiday. We flew in on an Andover, whilst many others drove down from Wigram, and we put the tents up. Then after that for us 'extras' there was the occasional rostered job like washing dishes, switching on the shower water heater, tidying the laundry tent, etc. There were so many of us these jobs came round only two or three times throughout the week we were there.

The rest of the time we were on holiday. So long as you were not rostered, we could do whatever we liked. It was literally a holiday camp. We made a few trips into town to go shopping. We looked round the Wanaka museum. We played rugby. We chatted with the PTS boys. We chatted with the other staff who also had long durations of time off. And we watched a lot of awesome flying.

There were one or two PTI's there - Physical Training Instructors. But we didn't have to do PT, they were our travel guides, taking treks and adventures, all expenses paid. Myself and two others opted to join a kayak trip with a PTI Flight Sergeant who's name I forget, but he was a great bloke. So the four of us were driven upriver and put into the river that goes right past the airfield at Luggate (Wanaka Airport). I was the only one who'd never done it before, and I was ratehr nervous of the swift river. I soon settled in, till one of the others fell out, and lost his raft. He was stuck on an island, whilst me and another retrieved his raft. But the three of us found it impossible to get over to him, or to get his boat to him, (we'd have one upstream trying to fire his boat across the stream to him, and two of us downstream catching it if he missed it - which he did every time) and the water was way too dangerous for him to jump into. We actually battled for about two hours to rescue the poor chap, and our PTI was at his wits end. It was a really tense time indeed. We decided that there was nothing for it but to have one of us run down stream to the airfield and fetch help, hopefully a Sioux or Iroquois that had been there earlier in the day. But we decided before this we'd have one last ditch effort. Amazingly, the Flight got his boat across, and rescued this chap, who was intensely grateful as he'd been hanging on for grim death on this tiny island in the rapids.

We all voted to hop out and walk the boats across country back to the airfield, which the Flight had calculated using his map was bascially straight up the bank. This took ages dragging the boats, but I was never gladder of terra firmer. I was the only one not to fall out that day.

When we finally got back to the camp on dusk, very worse for wear, we were greeted by a large group of people all looking concerned and carrying packs, etc. This was our search party that was within moments to leave and look for us because we were so overdue. Our poor driver had been waiting at the boatramp at the other end and we'd failed to turn up!

That was the only major adventure and we were all unscathed and happier for a few cold beers that night.

I recall a TA4K Skyhawk or two flew in one of the days and was giving rides to the airmen who usually never got a chance. I was offered but declined because I was hungover and I am someone who'd been sick in a Herc and an Onion, so I knew it was not a good idea. I also turned down several rides in the CT4B's.

We 'extras' also were rostrered for bar duty and I was lucky to have my night the last night, on the Friday. I say lucky because all the other nights I had off and could drink, and also because they'd rostered several of us on for the final night, we took turns and my turn was early shift with a few others. So I got my shift out of the way and had the rest of the night free. I remember one night, may have been that night, we had a rasta theme and many of us dressed up in mock dreads. Me and a colleague, Max Cawley, who'd also been on the kayak trip, had sewn up some cool rasta colours jackets in the Fabric Section. I remember one of the PTS instructors, Flt Lt Burfoot, came in wearing a sweatshirt with virtually every Simpsons character there was, which he and his wife had made themselves. It was superb. He was the biggest fan of the series I ever met. Cool guy.

Another duty we had was one night being Duty Airman, which meant we had to keep watch with the Duty NCO. One thing we did was drive the ute up and down the airfield with spotlights blazing looking for intruders. There were thousands, literally thousands, of rabbits. A sea of them parting in the spotlights! Security was indeed a big issue too, because some Maachis and Strikemasters had flown in and whilst the pilots were sleeping, someone had stolen a flying helmet out of the Blunty! They were worth about $20,000!

Ah yes, very good times indeed. Each pilot course makesup its own logo (you saw one tonight when they zoomed in on the pupil's patch). The S&S guys (us) used to make up a bar sign for each course's Wise Owl which hung on the bar. Our own bar in the Parachute Bay (yes, we had a bar - a secluded hidden bar that only came out of its hidy hole on Friday afternoons!!) had many of these signs hung on it, some dating back to the 1960's. Also some from the NATTS excercises hung in our section too. I wonder what became of them when the base closed. I hope the museum got them.

Enough rambling now...

[Dave Homewood]

Chris, I'll answer your points that you posted while I wrote my long spiel...

No, the RNZAF doesn't require 20:20 vision. In fact several people who joined up with me ad their civvie glasses taken away and were supplied safety lens galsses in the same frames for free.

When we got the Steyrs, the first thing the RNZAF taught us was to fire with full auto. That was the first and only time I've fired an automatic. I was totally crap firing semi-auto with the SLR, I hated them. With the Steyr I was first-equal shot on the base with automatic, I centred 19 of the 20 rounds. Only an Armourer Sgt equalled me. I was more surprised than anyone, and the Base Warrant Officer, Terry Wereta, told me off for lying to him because previously I'd told him I was a crap shooter!

I never heard to you were not allowed to fire full auto - that is what they're made for. Probably just a budget restriction to save rounds?

The Siuox should sound very much like a sick Massey Ferguson chugging into life on start up. I will revirew the tape as I never picked up on that point.

[Dave Homewood]

Yep, having listened again, it did sound like a turbo chopper. I can't recall if the Sioux makes that sound when wound up, I know initial start up is a rattley clatter like a tractor starting. Possibly dubbed over in post-production using a generic chopper noise.

The noise I did pick up on was when the officer is being interviewed in his office in front of the map, the noise of the wind outside howling. That is the constant sound of that absolute hole they call Ohakea!!

What is the plane they were digging out of the mud? Is it one of the 42 Sqn Beech King Airs? A twin turbo of some sort with double tires.

[Bruce]

Ahh, finally I see why so much of Matamatas Grass taxi areas were unusable last winter! Looks like the guys had a lot of fun, but did some serious training at the same time. The Sioux was a surprise - I though we had just about run out of them? I Like the shots taken of Wairere falls from (very) low altitude. Perhaps the Sioux Turbine sound was the King Air winding up. I recall the KingAir blasting overhead my workshop at "Zilch" feet during the course of Wiseowl - low level Navex I guess - there was no mention of the King Air's involvement in the programme though.

[turboNZ]

The glasses question was genuine one because I really didn't know that. I always thought it was the stereotypical fighter pilot Top Gun style who had to have perfect vision. Learnt something else.

When I was in the Army, we got severely (I MEAN SEVERELY) b0ll0cked if we used full-auto.
I guess it's a means of keeping discipline with fire-control. The RNZAF obviously are different in that point.
I s'pose if I was in a firefight and the chips were down I'd do the Yank thing and "Spray and Pray" !!!

With the '47 noise I reckon it was typical TV dubbing thinking no-one would notice 'cause it makes the chopper sound so much "cooler".... IMHO me thinks not !!

The stuck aircraft for a sec looked like a Leftover but then was too big so must have been a King-Air.

I hope I don't sound like I'm prattling on !!

Cheers
Chris
(TNZ)

[Bruce]

Yeah the stuck aircraft was definitely a Kingair, you can see it in the back of some of the shots of the row of aircraft, and behind the sioux when they are doing preflight (from memory, I didnt tape it) as ex Aeromotive staff I can also recognise B200 bits when I see them

[Dave Homewood]

Prattling on Chris? Not by a ruddy long chalk compared with me!

I think pilots have to have good eyesight when they join, but they're not going to be grounded if they later need glasses. I seem to recall a couple of Wigram pilots who wore glasses when I was there - I think Garrick Beats who was killed in an Airtrainer crash wore them from memory. Something I've never erally thought about, good question.

The RNZAF usually only get to touch a rifle about once a year (except on parades when you cannot fire them) so I guess automatic is a perk! ;D In fact after my basic training, I only used a rifle twice off parade, once for that shoot as descibed and another time for firing party at a funeral. That is in the space of four and a half years. It's probably different nowadays though with all the peacekeeping they're doing, as I said, in the exercises I went on there was none of that war stuff!