GP CAPT DAN NEEDHAM REMEMBERS A HILARIOUS ‘WHEEZE’ INVOLVING UNORTHODOX USE OF A METEOROLOGY BALLOON AT A PRESTIGIOUS JOINT SERVICE DINNER
As a young pilot, Roger Dimmock survived a Sea Hawk crash at the 1958 Farnborough Air Show, and went on to become a rear admiral. His death in 2014 brought back vivid memories for me of 1970, when he was a Buccaneer pilot and a senior naval officer at Honington in Suffolk.
I was there as a recently qualified Buccaneer navigator and a flight commander on 12 Squadron. The story of our involvement in the infamous ‘Met Balloon Saga’ is best recounted over several pints of beer. However, I shall try to write as I remember it, over 40 years on. Honington was home to both 12 Squadron and the Buccaneer Operational Conversion Unit, 237 OCU. In 1970, 809 NAS Buccaneers and crews came ashore from Ark Royal’s latest commission and joined us. It was very much a gathering of the Buccaneer brotherhood. The welcome ashore was enthusiastic, and the first joint ‘guest night’ in the Mess was both outstanding and outrageous. Every ‘wheeze’, perfected over the years in ward rooms and Messes was rolled out, right down to ‘exploding’ cabbages. Great fun, but very messy.
The station comma…
