Buccaneer1992 - 1994 (2)

Buccaneer 1992 - 1994 (2)

Back in the UK, the usual competition between the Sqns went on. In the game of screw up tennis, 12 Sqn took an early lead after Bill took a wrong turning on Bristol’s runway: the 'Dogs' were quick to add a new verse to an old song about runways, but honour was quickly restored after a 12 Sqn wheels up. With the Gulf War honours list out and favouring 12, it looked like they had won the first set, but we know we would be back.

208 Sqn had already taken over the RAF laser designation commitment from the Thermal Imaging Airborne Laser Designation (TIALD) equipped Tornado aircraft of 617 Sqn. This involved the extensive modification of several aircraft and the training of eight crews. Despite our best pleas and the sacrifice of several 12 Sqn virgins, our aspiration to get Tony Lunnon-Wood (TLW) to be the last boss didn’t work out. Instead, Nige Huckins took the reins in March 1992. He had the benefit of doing his work up on the Buccaneer Training Unit (BTU), following the demise of 237 OCU, which gave him the ideal opportunity to see how the Sqn was running and canvass opinions from the ‘shop floor’ – obviously there were many of those. Some of the best suggestions of how to end in a blaze of glory included: Las Vegas, to take part in a final Red Flag (which didn’t happen) and South Africa to visit 24 Sqn (which didn’t happen either). Of note Phil O’Dell did manage to get there on his own with XW986 but that’s his story to tell.

In the spring, the Sqn spent two weeks flying long distance sorties against targets well inside the Arctic Circle. If memory serves, on at least one of the sorties we launched off runway 28 with 48 Kts blowing across the airfield. There were also OTFs to Rimini (twice – it must have been good), Baden Solingen and Montijo. In May, we had a visit from RAF Cranwell to carry out our annual spin currency, this being the first time we were to fly in the Tucano, not the Jet Provost (JP). Let’s just say the initial results weren’t that promising, although it did prompt Kim Smith’s funniest ever line: sic “Skids will do anything to get home earlier”. More successfully, we managed to get four aircraft involved with the Tactical Leadership Training (TLT) 92/1.