cp13

cp13's Last (NZ) Stand

Following a stressful and busy week with everyone passing their IFR skills tests (some with only minutes to spare due to a dicky seat - Rogers!) the end of the New Zealand phase of training was marked with a spit roast BBQ for all at Peachgrove.

A character calling himself 'Brownie' appeared in the carpark armed with a do it yourself spit roasting kit and soon had a meat feast prepared.  High spirits were abound and fun and frolics ensued from the outset.  cp19 had noticed that Mark, being a dedicated follower of fashion, had sported a tank top outfit on a number of previous occasions - and therefore made a grand entrance each wearing a splendid tank top.   Not only that, but it was glasses of Pimms all around as well - Extremely amusing.  Alex almost choked in merriment as the mood was set for the rest of the evening.

As most descended into alcoholism, KB retained a steady hand and cut Alex's hair, much to the delight of a few junior types who had never witnessed the ceremony before.  Before long they had all been convinced that KB had in fact been a Toni & Guy stylist in his pre-flying life...  Alex of cp19 who may as well be cp13 Alex's younger (twin if that's possible) brother added to the impersonations and produced a Alex Stephen stylie pink t-shirt and 'Mini Me' badge - hilarious.

Taxis were summoned and off we went into town, first stop had to be the legendary drinking hole that has become the local - Bank.  Once again Rogers and Stephen with the help of some others who had seen the light, drank the place out of Pimms while predicting the music videos with instrumental precision, not that they are predictable you understand!  The local dodgy blonde bird and her toothless friend were in attendance and as usual kept shouting, "ooooh cp13 I'm on your website".  That's right love and we presume you haven't yet discovered it or you'd have seen the caption and would thus be less than friendly.  The friend kept flashing her chest to Mark, who became scared and hid in the beer garden.  Anyway, the feisty blonde one, whose name we ask every time but still can't remember, latched on to Rich Elvis (see pics...).

And so it became time to proceed to Outback.  Shots and more shots and some gin and tonic.  Most people by this time were not particularly compus mentis, which made it even more amusing.  Ridiculous dancing, lots of goodbyes as people drifted off home (lightweights!) and more gin.  The amount of gin consumed probably had something to do with the fact that a large number of people left Outback at throwing out time, only to go on to Firecats!

Firecats is the local strip club and we stumbled up the road to it.  On the way Simon decided to climb a lamp post sideways, Mark fell (was pushed) over and did some sort of flashbacks of Nam commando roll, and we encountered some sort of mad bearded bloke (see pics).  The women in Firecats were as rough as usual, and the clientele wasn't much better, however they were still serving beer which was good enough for most of us.  Some sat next to the stage in a daze, presumably dreaming of a 1975 metallic brown Vauxhall Viva...

Memories get a little hazy here, but we know we got back to Peachgrove via McDonalds due to evidence found in the morning.  There was also a girl in the car, but who she was and where she went we haven't a clue.

Bearing in mind we had to be up at 0730 and it was now 0600 and we were still blind drunk, there could be problems!

Mark stayed up and did packing before waking the rest at 0730.  Alex had turned his alarm off and hadn't even started putting stuff into his suitcase!  Five minutes later we were in a car heading for the airport wondering what we had forgotten to do, and whether Alex's broken suitcase, held together with tape and string would ever make it to London.

At Auckland Airport Mark, Alex and KB (who had flown up - posh buggers) waited outside for an hour to meet Jamie with our baggage, only to realise he was the other side of a large plant pot, five metres away, and had been there over an hour.  Not that we were all out of it or anything...

Anyway, goodbye to NZ and everyone else there, cheers for the laughs and good luck from cp13 - nobody does it better!

Photos can be viewed here.

There is also a splendid account and numerous other amusing pictures courtesy of cp19 (the official fan club of cp13) which can be viewed here.

Need for speed

A brief respite for the weekend before the final week in NZ saw Mark, Jamie, ALex, KB and James Warrick Esq. of cp20 head to Lake Taupo for some watersports(!) fun and frolics.  A couple of hours in the mighty Corolla passed cheerfully with tunes from the accompanying ipod, although there wasn't quite enough cheese for Alex's liking - KB even did an ATPL progress test en route, dedication or madness!?

Shock horror, the first place we went to didn't have enough jet skis or even any availability so Jamie, JW and Alex decided to whack some golf balls out into the lake at the neighbouring driving/hit the nearest boat with a golf ball range.

Then we hit the jackpot at 'Chris Jollys' and arranged the hire of a splendid boat, a jet ski thing (actually resembled two kayaks strapped together with an outboard, a seat and handlebars) and a 'biscuit' which is an inflatable rubber ring with hand holds that one tows behind the boat. 

Having left the key to the car as a bond, signed something to say we knew what we were doing and would act in accordance with MSA(whatever they are..!?) rules and would take due care on the lake we headed out of the harbour.

Within 5 minutes we had entangled the biscuits tow rope around the propellor.

To save the embarressment of JW on the jet ski towing the rest of us in, we sent Jamie on a Navy Diving Course which he completed in record time and was therefore able to skillfully disentangle the prop without the loss of any limbs. 

A marvellous time was had by all careering around Lake Taupo on the crystal clear blue tinted freshwater, diving off speeding boats a la baywatch stylie and seeing who could stay on the biscuit the longest.  KB set a new water speed record.

The photos are here.

Christmas bash pics

Photos of the xmas bash can now be seen here.

New Caledonia

The details of the New Caledonia trip are under construction, in the meantime there are four photo albums to have a look at, cunningly titled New Caledonia 1, 2, 3 and 4...

Christmas night out

The Christmas night out began with social drinking in the scruffs' bar at RAF Peachgrove Officers Mess, with cp13's CS leading the merriment and becoming quite under the influence on beer, black vodka and mothers' ruin before any taxis were even summoned. And so around 40 of the great and the good departed for a meal at Iguana, as well as a few hangers on thrown in for good measure. The obligatory game of chinese whispers was played while we waited for the food to arrive leading to some surprising exposes relating to the nocturnal activities of cp17. Pickford and Fatboy Warwick of cp20 played a splendid game of eat the chocolate cake without the use of eating irons - some would say vastly unprofessional in such an establishment, others declared it inspired merry making. Crossland, the resident pyromaniac was doing things with candles while CS had discovered he could not now maintain the vertical without an orange assistant, as well as infiltrating the cp19 end of the table. cp13, now being the senior course in NZ, led the formalities and gave the loyal toast, Alex adding the Duke of Lancaster in true regimental style. Mark wanted to play round the room without touching the floor but the presence of other restaurant guests was too numerous. A very nice bottle of port was consumed and then it was declared that those who must could and several retired to the terrace for a cigar before the greater circle proceeded on to the Bank for more Pimms, and then a quick look in Outback. The evening continued with the stalwarts of Alex, Mark, Martin (cp19) and Elvis (cp19) being entertained by one or two of the instructers (found in a bar) with stories of debauched goings on at chez intructers... Some people even continued on to Altitude, with the Gill and Jamie, but it was too much for the rest who baled out (KB had done a runner hours before), CS was lost as usual, hopefully to reappear the next morning to go home for Christmas!

Pictures to follow...

Progress...

cp13 have been working flat out of late and have therefore not really got up to much in the way of antics, however the Christmas break is fast approaching.  Hence do look out for tales of derring do from Mark, Alex, KB and Jamie who are off to New Caledonia (deerrrrr, for those of you who don't know it's a small island in the South Pacific, originally a French penal colony) for a week over Christmas.

We are now heavily into the IFR simulator stage but have been delayed and should now be returning to the UK early in the new year.

A fancy dress party...

On Saturday evening, Mark accompanied some of cp16 to a random fancy dress party up the road from RAF Peachgrove which turned out to be a complete disaster and a casevac was initiated with all speed.  However evacuation was not completed before some souvenirs were 'acquired' including a fairy's silver magic wand (which Rich from cp19 took an instant shine to and cavorted around with for most of the evening!), a set of fluffly bunny ears and santa's hat.  These of course caused much hilarity later on in Bank and Out'break' where McInnes was most impressed with the bunny ears and Morgan believed he was about to make another Santa Claus movie.  Brownie (the honorary member of cp13 for three weeks, who incidently collapsed in the aeroplane toilet and had to be given oxygen on the way over here - this was to be a recurrent theme following a shot of Chartreuse!) was 'putting the vibe out' scaring the locals and Alex stalked Bronwyn - everybody's favourite barmaid. The photos can be viewed here.

Oooooh two engines...

We have progressed from the single engine phase of the course and shall now be flying this twin engined beast, the Piper Seminole. For suitably cheesy pictures see the photo album entitled 'Cheese'.

Something for the weekend sir!?

CS has had a hair cut.

Hamilton nights 2

Last evening the theme of pink was declared and KB, Mark and Alex went to what now seems to the local - Bank. A young girl shortly approached Mark and before long the trio were engaged in a conversation with the dear bird. It transpired she was a drunk hairdresser, complimenting Alex's hair piece which greatly pleased KB considering it was his handiwork (the second time in as many days that a hitherto unknown hairdresser has passed such a comment!). Continuing the previous evening's theme of cleptomaniacs inhabiting Hamilton, Amber (as we established she was named) finished her drink and immediately crammed the empty glass into her handbag with all of the surreptitiousness of a hyena on happy pills. Apparently she was here with her 'Nana' who was pretending to be her mother...some sort of chaperone it seemed. The grandmother turned up, introduced herself and then took a strategic vantage point keeping an eye on proceedings while resembling Eartha Kitt. There was something not quite right about the entire situation and wallets were checked every couple of minutes in case it was a tag team like the old couple in Dirty Dancing. The grandmother became bolder and Alex engaged in conversation, saying what we were doing in New Zealand,

"Oh really, you're all pilots, oh yes I've read about you in the newspaper, well we're VERY pleased to meet you...you MUST leave your numbers and we'll DEFINITELY meet up in the future..."

That was it, the grandmother was hooked, proceeding to the bar to speak to others of us who had turned up.

It was around this time Mark and KB noticed a perculiar smell, a cross between mothballs and lavender water - a very unconventional scent that turned out to emanate from the grandmother.

Following this, we continued to outback where we met a jolly girl from Denmark who was here 'making better her English' by working on a dairy farm 'covered head to tow in s**t every day' before returning to Denmark to become a midwife next year, not quite sure where the connection is but there must be one somewhere.

And so an interesting night was had by all!