AFM October 2005

[RMR]

The name "hawkeyes" took over from  "army co-op sqdn".Presumably when they moved to baldonnell....some officer probably had his kid rename them!!!!!!

[Buran]

Lets rename them Team Discovery Channel!!

(Thats a simpsons quote by the way, before i get flamed)

[GoneToTheCanner]

Hi Fouga
When we qualified as apprentos and were being assigned to a unit, it became obvious to us that there was a definite hierarchy "up camp" as to which unit was considered the best to work in.Heli Flight and GP Flight (now MATS) were the front runners,Engineering Wing (also Tech Wing) a close second with BFTS third and Rat Squadron bringing up the rear(at a considerable distance).Anyone exiled to Gormo to work on the Cessnas was considered mad,bad and dangerous to know and a posting there was regarded as career death.Gormo was also used as a punishment posting because of the upheaval it caused one's domestic life.It only suited fellas from Louth, Meath,North Dublin and all points North.Rat squadron earned it's unsalubrious nickname because of the manner in which some of it's NCOs forget where they came from and made a habit of shafting their fellow techies.I'm not going to mention any names but anyone familiar with Rat squadron knows who they are/were.
regards
GttC
regard

[Fouga]

Thank you Sir.

[John K]

As a gungy in the appt school from '76 to '78 the fougas were just behind helis in the heirarchy! we'd just got the Beechcraft but they were an unknown quantity, I suppose, but Tech Wing was only just above Gormo! My reckoning of the 'wish list' was:
1. Heli Flight (Still called a flight-even though there were 8a/c)
2. Rat Sqn
3. BFTS (they'd just got the Marchettis!)
4. GP Flight (Still had Doves!)
5. Tech Wing
6. Gormo

I got to spend 2 years in Rat Sqn from '78-80, then went to a unit that seemed to have a purpose, Heli Sqn as it was renamed. The Rats weren't bad blokes if you kept your nose clean, they only dropped you in it if you were continuously taking the pi55!

[P.Doff]

The news of 247 retiring  after the Valley photocall was actually quoted by the pilot at the photocall to the AFM photographers who picked it up wrong. It was said that the trip would be its last before retirement, but what he was saying was, that it would be its last Airshow/overseas trip.

[RMR]

I'm sure the "exiles" from gormo will enjoy reading those comments!

[GoneToTheCanner]

Hi RMR
That is the reality.Gormo was hated, I kid you not and the mere threat of being sent there was enough to soften anyone's cough.I didn't make up the anti-Gormo attitude;it was there long before I got up camp.Despatching persons to Gormo was used as an unofficial punishment and I know of one guy who was sent there for failing to have a beret on his head when going down camp.If that pisses off the Gormo heads, then sorry, but that's the way it was.
regards
GttC

[RMR]

Was that just the opinion of the guys in bal,i dont think it was hated that much by the guys permanantly based there,ok ,everybody has complaints of one type or another about their workplaces!!! After all there was a lot of pissed off people when it was being shut..

[GoneToTheCanner]

Hi RMR
A lot of it was just surface slagging and wind-ups, you know the kind,but there was always a nagging fear/dislike of the place, especially for anyone who didn't have a car or motorbike or originated in a county that needed a Dublin transport link.I can understand the Gormo lads being fed up when it closed down, with the subsequent upheaval in their families' lives.I doubt they recieved the distance-related compensation that civil servants have recieved for their decentralisation.Apart from that, a lot of people regarded the place as impossible to get out of, transfer-wise and a place in which one could be forgotten about.Some people even regarded Gormo as being "too close" to the Army.Also, a lot of Donners never visited Gormo in their career, except to shoot or as a heli crewman, so the place was percieved as being "backwoods".
Regards
GttC

[RMR]

Hi Gttc,
           yeah,it is a bit hard to get to if you had no transport,even if you had transport, the travelling to and fro everyday would get to you,especially with no travel related compensation.Holds some great memories all the same,when fully operational it was a great place as a young aircraft enthusiast to be around especially the air firing months!

[clan]

Bear with me on this. But reading this post on Gormanstown makes me think what do people in Baldonnel actually like. I mean, they did not like the idea of flying off the Eithne as it was a ship that sometimes sailed in water and they may have to stay overnight on board, they don't like flying outside the east coast as it is too far away. They don't like the facilities provided in the North West because its beside the Atlantic. And now they don't like Gormanstown because its to North Dublin and too Army??.
The above might seem harsh and it is a little but, they are all things that have been said on this board over the years.

[John K]

Yep! Clan you've got all the above right! In my day, from Baldonnel Gormo was seen as too 'Army' and the lads up there, although still 'techies' were interbred, banjo playing recruits! Of course some of my crowd were posted up there after the Appt. hostel and I used to meet up with them if we passed through as a heli crewman-like you said-and on my NCO course we spent 2 weeks up there, field craft, platoon in attack scenarios, grab a granny in Butlins, etc! But of course behind it all the lads there were the same as us and quite a few Donners never got to see Gormo so only believed the mickey taking stories!