BOH

Fantastic pictures

RoyalSwazi

After the war, the company my dad worked for was tasked with bringing in accommodation units for the MOD. He flew down on the VC-10, and apparently the ticket price at the time was exorbitant. As gifts for his eight year old son he brought back commemorative first edition stamps marking the one year jubilee of the liberation and T-shirt with a big Union Jack and the text “Keep the Falklands British”. My mum freaked out one day a couple of years later when I decided to wear it to school, and our neighbours who did the school run that day were Argentinian. It took me a few years to understand why.

krispy84

I wasn’t consciously aware that BA had
ever held the trooping contract, but then I remembered this photo:




Taken from Looking for Trouble, the autobiography of General Sir Peter de la Billiere (in-theatre commander of British forces in Gulf War 1).

Fruitcake

Mrs Fruitcake and I visited the Falklands in November 2019, via Santiago (reached on BA) and then LATAM, via Punta Arenas. Pleased to do this great trip pre Covid and pre LATAM leaving OW. (Not that there is a lounge at Punta Arenas, and certainly not at Mount Pleasant!) The RAF base, MPN, is interesting, but weird and very slow for civvies. Also, the rotor winds at MPN can lead to flight cancellations, which are made by the RAF under their military conventions. Our outbound from Punta Arenas was delayed by a day due to that, and we were lucky to get to the Falklands at all. The tourist industry in the Falklands would love to see all this change - more reliable flights, less disruption, more comfort, less cost, to encourage more tourism. Some people suggested commercial planes could use Stanley Airport instead of MPN (it is used now by the small, red, internal FIGAS planes - which are good fun to fly in out to the camp (remote areas), and Stanley Airport is not, I believe, affected by rotor winds). It is also very close to Stanley, so more convenient, but would need some development, for sure.


FIGAS at Pebble Island airstrip (scene of Special Forces raid, May 1982).


MPN

Stanley Airport

Non Flying Friends

antichef

I recognise the Islander aircraft type in the photo. I have flown in them numerous times, but only ever landed in one once.

Every other time I exited by the left hand door at a sensible altitude.

Jagboi

Do the economy class passengers have to exit at altitude, and the business class passengers get to stay on board until landing?

T8191

Back in '83, FIGAS used to offer a spare seat to my ATCOs as they did their various sectors to remote communities across the islands. I took up their offer once, and when the Captain discovered I had once had a PPL he sat me in the right-hand seat (that would be 0B, right?) and asked me if I would like to take the controls. Whaaaat? So, once safely airborne and in the climb heading towards Goose Green, it was "You have control ... climb to 3,000 ft ... aim just to the right of that mountain ." I had no idea what the passengers thought about having some stranger in standard Military combat kit driving the aircraft. The Captain did the landing, of course, and after another hop to somewhere else, we headed back to Stanley.

And that was when we flew over what would become RAF Mount Pleasant ... at that time just a couple of surveyors' wheel ruts carved into the landscape!

krispy84

You missed a treat with Mount Pleasant Uncle T. Skimming through piles of 6 month old Country Life in the mess while working up some dutch courage to go for a pint in the Gull & Flick Knife (all ranks/rates bar).

T’was fun to be a JO with buggar all responsibility 😁.

Swanhunter

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this thread and the contributions. The Falklands War is the first really big news event I remember clearly from my childhood (and still have photos of the Canberra arriving back in Southampton, and then on board after my father blagged our way onto the ship once it had discharged).

The Islands are firmly on my must visit list.

antichef

Other way round, Business class go First ... if you get my meaning