TACEVAL
Mel Robson remembers.

 
“TACEVAL Part1 starts tomorrow.” gleefully announced our new fresh-faced JEngO (Junior Engineering Officer). His enthusiastic announcement shone through a wall of silence and disappointed faces from the gathered mass of 12 tired, wet and hungry ground crew who had enjoyed far too many of these exercises to work up a similar show of enthusiasm. As it was his first exercise of this nature, he dutifully asked if anyone assembled had any questions. “Yes.” I said, “When does it end?” Later the SEngO (Senior Engineering Officer) suggested to me that I was being unkind as it was the JEngO’s first week on the Squadron. I apologised and promised to ensure the JEngO would always remember this one. And so it was that at 0210 the following morning, after a late night shift finishing at 2330, I stumbled off to the Squadron dispersal that was sheathed in mist and rain. The idea was to ‘generate’ as many serviceable aircraft as possible in the shortest time possible, whilst always being under the beady eyes of the TACEVAL assessors, who appeared like rats in the most unsuspected places in and around our area. Gallantly, the mess was usually open 24 hours during such events but hadn’t done so by 0630 as some wise assessor had placed a suspect IED (Improvised Explosive Device) in the kitchens; a great morale booster! It was at times like this that my Sqn Tea Bar funds surged with IOUs as we weren’t supposed to carry cash in or around the aircraft.
 

Slowly but surely we achieved the impossible and by mid-morning we had produced our allotted number of flyable aircraft, loaded, secured and guarded by fierce Alsatian dogs, who were incontinent and crapped all over the dispersal. This was not good for us but worse for the aircrew who, when scrambling aboard the jet, took some along on their flying boots for the 5-7 hour ride but wished they hadn’t when the heating came on at altitude. Ha! I had been given the task of introducing our young lad to the joys of this kind of exercise and he dutifully followed me around doing checks, tests and patrolling. Such was the lot of Avionics as we generally fixed things lightning fast, rather stupidly in my personal view, whereas the other trades took ages to do dirty smelly things on colossal bits of structure and fittings. Just after dawn began to break in the eastern sky, there arose a loud, and getting louder, clattering and whining noise of two approaching Puma helicopters. They whizzed diagonally across the airfield and held a steady course directly towards us on ‘Alpha’ dispersal. At this point I should mention that our whole dispersal area was surrounded by huge, 10ft high sturdy metal fencing and with locked motorised gates covering the taxiways in and out. We both stood looking in amazement and I was convinced they hadn’t seen the fencing and were definitely going to collide with it at the height they were flying and at some considerable speed. “Get behind something solid, quick.” I shouted and we both cowered behind the nearest Houchin GPU set. The two helos rose up and over the fencing and came immediately to an impressive low hover in the centre of our dispersal, whereupon about 8 fully armed guys in camouflage leapt out, threw carpeting strips over the barbed wire atop the fence, climbed it, and then disappeared into the gloom. The helos climbed and shot off over the adjacent fields. “That’ll be the SAS then. Oh dear, JEngO, you had better tell the Boss - and quick.”
 

During the next 30 minutes there was panic throughout the station as one by one, things were ‘blown up’ by these phantoms of the night. The Stn Cdr announced that all personnel were to remain firmly indoors, his logic being that anyone outside must be an intruder - logical but not very clever, as who was going to capture these guys then? Minutes later he called a halt to the whole thing as his office had been ‘blown up’ in Station Headquarters. The SAS then wisely recovered to their helicopters which had landed in the adjacent farmers field and off they all went. The Stn Cdr was particularly upset, not that the TACEVAL had shown up a weak link in our defences but more importantly, they had let off a red smoke grenade in his office which was now a girly pink colour throughout. The JEngO said at the Squadron debrief, he thought that the TACEVAL had been a hoot and hoped all future exercises would be as much fun! The SEngO promoted him in the field to Officer I/C Fencing Repair. Then we all went to the mess for a much deserved meal - still chuckling.