No. 14 Squadron and the Falcon

[Dave Homewood]

How did No. 14 Squadron RNZAF become associated with the Falcon bird (i.e. Exercise Falcon's Roost; The Black Falcons display team, etc) when their actual bird in their badge is a Kea?

And when did the Falcon name become attached? Was that in the Strikemaster era,or was it earlier?

[davidd]

Pretty certain it was very early in the Strikemaster era, although have absolutely no clue as to why this bird was chosen, unless it was simply that 75 Squadron had the "Hawk" moniker all sewn up!
Dave D

[thax]

The use of 'Falcon' began with the introduction of the Macchi 339. Standard RNZAF practice is for radio callsigns to be the aircraft type (e.g. 'Skyhawk', 'Trainer', etc) followed by the tail number. Because 'Macchi' sounds very similar to 'Massey' (the callsign of Massey Aviation aircraft, who had been operating in the Manawatu for some time), this wasn't acceptable for ATC use. Why 'Falcon' was chosen over 'Kea' I can't explain - it may be something as simple as being a cooler sounding pro-word.

[11SQNLDR]

The Falcon's Roost exercises were certainly going on in the Strikemaster era, other than that I cannot contribute any more and look forward to finding out the answer.

Interesting to read about the Falcon callsign thanks Thax (interestingly the first time I met you was at A Falcon's Roost Ex...)

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks Thax, that makes a lot of sense regarding the call sign.

Regarding the actual original of the Falcons Roost exercise name, it seems most exercises and operations have names that are a bit random and often the meaning is only known to the people who came up with the name. perhaps the Falcon call sign was derived from the Falcons Roost name, but who knows. Maybe someone was just a Ford fan?

[Barnsey]

The Strikemaster replacement program was called "Project Falcon", obviously a long association with the name for 14 Sqn.

[baronbeeza]

Isn't there a bar term 'Falcon', along the lines of 'Badger' ?

[zolteg]

Jan 17, 2016 15:20:23 GMT 12 baronbeeza said:

Isn't there a bar term 'Falcon', along the lines of 'Badger' ?

The Falcon code Beeza....

check out www.combat.ws/S4/SAILOR/APNDX3.HTM and dukecunningham.org/forum/read.php/1787

[baronbeeza]

Thanks for the code. I am sure I have heard guys use Falcon over a few beers and I can just picture GW, Gordon Alexander, coming out with a Falcon One Two Zero, perhaps even something a little more profound.
Another possibility would have been the Capel/Craven team effort. Although not with military backgrounds they did have a variety of codes they would trot out.

[tbf25o4]

There is possibly another connection to the origin of "Falcon" as the callsign for 14 squadron, based on the creating of the Falcon's Roost exercises, which were a lead on from the
Wise Owl FTW exercises, the Falcons Roost exercises being a more "operationally oriented" exercise in the lead-up to operational flying.
Most of the codenames came from the big NATO book on allocation of exercise/operational names. The classic example is having to change Red Owl (FTW) camps to Wise Owl as the NATO book stated
that any "Colour" in an exercise represented a state of operational readiness training i.e. the "Red Flag" series conducted in the US

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks Paul, I had wondered why there was a change from Red Owl to Wise Owl. That seems to have coincided with the change from Harvards to Airtrainers around 1978 or so.

[davidd]

Dave H, this re-naming took place during 1975.

12 – 21/11/75; Exercise WISE OWL 14, held at Kaikohe by PTS staff and pupils of 1/75 Course. This was in fact the RED OWL series of exercises re-named but continuing in the same numbered series.

David D

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks