Reed in Asia - Asian diary - Asia14 TGIF -Weekend tomorrow

Reed in Asia

TGIF -Weekend tomorrow!

The first thing that I did the next day at work after checking the movements board, was to jump in a landrover and drive to the general office. I knew where to go now, so I walked over to the money counter and changed £50 into Singapore dollars ready for the weekend. Back at work again, I chatted with some of the other guys about where to buy things that I wanted for the house that weekend and most agreed with what I already thought, which was the Shaw Centre for most things, but one of them suggested another big shopping mall in the Chinatown area, People's Park for certain things. We had the usual three or four aircraft movements that day, but two Hercules were also due in at 18:00 that day so we would have to work a little later than usual.

I was really looking forward to the weekend that week, because unlike the time I had off work when I was staying in the Morningside hotel, this time I had a home and I had a good feeling of normality, permanency and belonging now, to be able to go out shopping and just generally enjoying yourself and have a nice home to go back to afterwards, this was a new, good feeling for me. Before I was posted to Singapore, I had always been single and just lived in standard single airman's accommodation on any base that I worked at or visited, so my situation at that present time was strange and new to me, but strange and new in a good way, I was very happy with it.

As usual again that day, none of the aircraft had any problems with their flight systems equipment, so nothing special for me to do that day. Flight systems equipment was generally very reliable and for air safety reasons it had to be, because it controlled the aircraft and the direction of flight. Also unlike most of the other equipment on the aircraft, when there was a fault with the flight systems equipment, it was virtually impossible at times to replicate the symptoms on the ground, because everything was airborne oriented. So when I did have a problem with my equipment on any aircraft, the aircrew debrief was very important indeed, because I had to simulate in my head what was physically happening at that time in the flight and equate that to what the flight systems equipment would be doing at that time and what could cause it to give faulty indications, outputs or manoeuvres.

It may appear to people reading these diaries that I had a very easy job with very little work to do in the RAF, so I feel that I should explain a little more here. When I did sometimes get a problem with the flight systems equipment on an aircraft, it would take a lot of in-depth system knowledge and intensive aircrew debriefing to understand the problem correctly and to rectify the reported fault successfully on the ground.

Reed in Asia in the RAF Singapore - Asian diaries

It was a little late when we all left work that evening after taking care of the Hercules aircraft, it was almost 19:00 when we left. Singh had come at his usual time that evening and I had told him about the late aircraft arrivals, so he left again and he had just returned a few minutes earlier. As usual many of us went to the keema stall and being Friday that day, a few more extra guys went as well. Everyone had a good time and drank lots of beer with their keema and I could have stayed longer with them, but I knew Myra would be waiting for me so I drank my beer quickly, got a carry-out, paid the bill and left early. Everyone was sitting outside the house waiting for me when I eventually got home that evening and John quickly gave me a beer from his cool box as soon as I sat down. I gave Myra the carry-out, apologised for being late and explained about the late aircraft arrivals. We all had our usual good evening together that night and we all eventually went to bed relatively late, because John and I had no work the next day.