Overseas Training Flights (2)
With blood streaming from his head he was clearly in no fit state to fly! So the Boss and I left Spike and Rob behind to catch up another day!
On another occasion (22 June 1990) a pair of Buccaneers
set off for Zaragoza in northern Spain. We were looked after by the USAF contingent at the airfield and set off for a hotel in the city. Zaragoza is a big university city of over 500,000 people, situated on the Ebro River and not far from the Pyrenees, with almost no tourists. On Friday evening we sampled a few tapas bars – one that sticks in my memory had a tradition of customers disposing of their glasses on the floor rather than handing them back to be washed! Or perhaps most of the customers were just a little bit the worse for wear! Anyway the floor was very crunchy with broken glass!
On Sunday we hired a car and drove to the Pyrenees – marvellous views and a little cooler than in the city – a great road trip. On Monday morning we had an uneventful trip back to Lossiemouth, having experienced a new culture and learned some useful lessons in operating in Spanish airspace and from a Spanish (US) airbase.
The moral of the story! OTFs were great fun and we had some great places to go, but in the end we all learned something about operating out of foreign airbases through foreign airspace, which was the whole reason for OTFs in the first place! But it was much better when we had some very interesting places to visit!
- Dave Trembaczowski-Ryder
Buccaneer Overseas Training Flights Page 1 2
