Afghan Christmas

Fg Off Tony Newton reports on his experiences bringing Afghan Christmas cheer into UK homes

I’d been tasked by Air Command to take a Mobile News Team to Kandahar and Bastion, record as many Christmas messages as we can from personnel across all three services, and bring the resulting material back to the UK for processing and uploading to the RAF’s website. With me was videographer Cpl Dylan Browne, and we were hosted in theatre by Flt Lt Chloe Bridge who manages media operations for 83 Expeditionary Air Group. Chloe had lined up sessions for us with many of the units represented in Bastion, and by the end of the project we’d recorded over 250 Christmas messages.

Gun oil, not suntan oil

Flying Officer Tony Newton reports on 7644’s pre-deployment training at RAF Akrotiri

Service personnel reading this will know all about Individual Pre-Deployment Training (IPDT), but for those new to the wonderful world of military acronyms, IPDT is the course that every member of the RAF has to take before going ‘Out of Area’ (OAA) on Operation HERRICK (Afghanistan).

IPDT is managed by the RAF Regiment, which runs courses at a variety of locations in the UK and abroad. The idea is that every individual should be up to date with current threats, competent in managing their own personal safety and able to assist others with first aid. 

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Tony Newton posts from the UK about an early end to his deployment.

One of the things about getting older is that your parents do too. When I agreed to a six week mobilisation to Italy in support of Op ELLAMY, I knew that my father wasn’t in the best of health, but as neither family nor doctors could answer the ‘how long is a piece of string?’ question, it made sense just to get on with the deployment.

I’d agreed with my siblings that they wouldn’t withhold important information from me while I was away, and initially phone calls home confirmed that my father’s condition was stable. But a couple of weeks into my time in Gioia, the message started to change, and both my Paradigm calling card and my Vodafone inclusive minutes started to be rapidly depleted through long discussions as to how far things should be allowed to deteriorate before I ‘banged out’. We’d agreed that as different family members had different perspectives on when would be the right time to come home (if at all), we’d take a leaf out of the ‘Britain’s Got Talent ‘ book and I’d come home when each of my three siblings and my mother all individually gave me a red light.

A whiter shade of pale

Flt Lt Tony Newton posts from Gioia del Colle, Italy:

They say that a plan never survives first contact with the enemy. Sometimes, it doesn’t even survive contact with your own side. In what the 7644 Deputy Officer Commanding described as “a first for the Squadron” (and which I suspect might even be a first for the RAF), the Herc I was supposed to be on left Brize Norton several hours early. I suppose that whatever it had on board was more urgently required in theatre than its passengers, so a number of us were left cooling our heels until the next flight.

The result was that as I arrived at Gioia, the relaxed and comprehensive handover anticipated from our own Tom Calver was limited to him gesturing to me across the barrier separating incoming and outgoing passengers. “Here’s your phone,” he said, and with that he was gone- him to the waiting Herc and me to inbound processing.

But the handover notes Tom had left were pretty comprehensive, so the only damage done was I that I asked a few more stupid questions than I might otherwise have done.

Going home

Flight Lieutenant Tom Calver posts from RAF Brize Norton some thoughts jotted down on his flight home:

It ends more or less where it began - in the hold of a Hercules transport aircraft.

Just over four months ago I stepped out of one into an Italian night that was cold. But then, it was only March.

Now I'm riding back to Brize Norton, where I'll post this before heading off for some leave.

People join 7644 Squadron for all sorts of reasons, but for me it was wanting to deploy. And as I joined in 2006, the more I heard from other squadron members about their deployments, the more I wanted to deploy.

First impressions

Flight Lieutenant Tom Calver posts from Poggio, Italy:

To be honest, when I first saw the Combined Air Operations Centre (CAOC) building, I was a bit disappointed. I’d expected something bigger, perhaps more fortress like and forbidding.

It didn’t look anything like that.

But the people working there did not disappoint in any way. Experts in their various fields, dedicated, hard-working and very friendly.

I was there with the mobile news team to find out more about the UK contribution to the work of the CAOC. It’s significant – with UK personnel in a lot of key roles.

An E-3D and an interrupted breakfast

Flight Lieutenant Tom Calver posts from Trapani, Sicily:

The Tactical Director had just sat down to breakfast and introduced himself when the phone rang. The conversation was short. Then he turned around to his colleagues and uttered that immortal word.

'Scramble.'

And our plans changed.

They don’t scramble E-3Ds. The Sentry, as it’s called, flies planned missions, controlling the skies over Libya, watching for breaches of the No Fly Zone, coordinating the hundreds of Nato aircraft carrying out missions as part of Operation UNIFIED PROTECTOR.

The only lesson from history is that we don't learn from history

Flying Officer Tony Newton in the JSCSC rotunda.

Flying Officer Tony Newton posts from the Joint Command and Staff College, Shrivenham:

The last time I was at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, Shrivenham, was to do an interview for Flight International about the concept of the Micro Air Vehicle (MAV). In the ten years since that visit, MAVs have become a reality, and the splendid building that houses the College is now home to Europe’s premier defence academy.

I’m here with 49 other junior officers of pilot officer, flying officer and flight lieutenant rank to attend the first in a series of three courses that comprise the Junior Officer Development Programme (JODP). Officers must complete JODP before they can be promoted to Squadron Leader, the lowest of the 'senior officer' ranks. The idea is that the first of these courses should be taken within a couple of years after graduating from Royal Air Force College Cranwell, with each of the next two courses being taken at two year intervals after that.

To Hull and back with 202 Squadron

Officer Cadet Meg Fairhurst posts from HQ A Flight 202 Squadron, RAF Boulmer:

When I decided to leave teaching and become a broadcast journalist nearly three years ago I never envisaged that I would be doing something quite as exhilarating as flying on a search and rescue mission on an RAF Sea King. 7644 Squadron had been asked by RAF Boulmer to produce a station video that would give an overview of the work that the station does for UK air defence and Search and Rescue. As an officer cadet, currently undergoing part-time military training at RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire, I was delighted to be asked to put my video skills into use by documenting the valuable work done by A Flight 202 Squadron in Search and Rescue.

My first helicopter trip certainly made an impression. 7644 Squadron's Deputy Officer Commanding, Squadron Leader Dylan Eklund, joined me for what should have been a routine training flight. But not long after boarding the aircraft a call came to go and rescue a diver in distress off the Sunderland coast. Within minutes we were airborne and over the North Sea, heading towards the location of the dive boat. Over the intercom I could hear the chatter as the pilot, Flight Lieutenant Matt Prosser, and co-pilot, Flight Lieutenant Dan Easter, confirmed the location of the stricken diver.

Libyan operations change everything

As noted earlier this week, 7644 Squadron has been playing a quiet part in Operation ELLAMY, the UK's contribution to air operations over Libya.  Several of the Squadron's officers have been deployed, one of whom, Flying Officer Geoff Maskell, played a part in bringing news of the RAF's role to the public.  Here he outlines his experiences.

Flying Officer Geoff Maskell posts from 7644 Squadron Headquarters:

Fg Off Geoff Maskell prepares for a rather unexpected task.

To be honest, it wasn’t the day I was expecting. Not by a long way.

When I left home early one Saturday morning in March, my only concern was if I had done enough work to pass the fitness test that RAF Reservists have to take twice each year.  I certainly wasn’t expecting a ringside seat to witness a little slice of history. But that is exactly what happened at my last training weekend.

In my day job I’m a BBC journalist based in Nottingham. The original plan was for me to drive RAF Halton in Buckinghamshire for a training weekend, before spending a week in France supporting a joint exercise between the RAF and the French Air Force.

It didn’t quite work out like that.