The Rock That Rocks -
…... depicting Spanish airspace – otherwise you were heading for a one-
After touchdown, (which we obviously did) the trick was to try to stop before you reached the public road which had kindly been closed for us because even the best of us can’t deal with landing and avoiding moving traffic. As this was my first landing we didn’t try to stop quickly, which gave us plenty of time to get the wings folded (how I wished I’d done that during my first TACEVAL some months later – but that is definitely another story). Parked up, shut down and bags out the back, we were ready to party – or so I thought.
After our post-
So what was the attraction with Gib? Well, there’s the fact that it’s 3 hours south of Lossiemouth and generally a lot warmer (actually sometimes in February it could be colder). Whilst the delights of the nightlife in Elgin have been tasted by many a Bucc-
Obviously, we didn’t just go to Gib to party, we were there to work too. Much of our time was spent supporting the Armilla patrol. This was the Royal Navy’s presence in the Persian Gulf; as the patrol transited through the Med and Suez, there was an ideal opportunity to work the crews up, which usually fell to one of the Bucc sqns. This generally involved attacking the ships and simulating some of the likely adversary tactics including attempting to shoot approaches to non-