Are you or have you ever been in the Armed Forces?

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Not anymore!

 

[Clave]

I was in the RAF for 12 years working on radar and missiles (Bloodhound)

 

[evangilder]

Cool. What years were you in?

 

[Clave]

Oh god *racks brain* umm.. 76 to 88...

 

[evangilder]

I was in the USAF from 1984-1988. Three of those years were at RAF Lakenheath. We had a few friends from the RAF in those days.

 

[Clave]

I drove past there not long ago... it's pretty big!

Most places I was at were tiny radar stations/missile squadrons further up the east coast.

I did go across to Aberporth in Wales a few times to help fire the Bloodhounds on the range there, that was pretty cool 8)

 

[evangilder]

Sounds cool to me! I'm not familiar with the bloodhounds, were those anti-aircraft? We had Rapiers at Lakenheath many years ago.

 

[Clave]

SAM, yes, but much, much bigger than a Rapier (I did see one of those fired as well)

http://www.picture-newsletter.com/missile/

Bloodhounds are gone now, I think airfields are protected by Rapier MkIIs now...

 

[evangilder]

Oh, okay, those do look somewhat familiar. I'm not sure where I saw them, but I do remember seeing them years ago. Rapiers kind of made me think of a bad-ass R2D2!

 

[Clave]

Haven't fired one of these in a long time:

anybody have a pic of the LMG? (similar to a Bren, with bipod and curved mag, but the barrel is like the SLR above, as it fires 7.62)

 

[Nonskimmer]

Nope. Just this one that was used by the Canadian Army, taken from the same site as your L1A1 pic I think.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Cool stuff welcome.

 

[Clave]

Danke!

BTW: The Bloodhound was classified as an aircraft, each one was serial numbered and had it's own Form 700....

 

[evangilder]

It certainly was big enough to be classified as such.

 

[Medvedya]

There's a pic of a Bloodhound in the albums - the Airfix kit came with a Land Rover and a teeny Alsatian!

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/album_page.php?pic_id=7252

 

[kiwimac]

Locked re-issued in a new uniform --

Kiwimac