Classic British Flight Sim

I arrived home from Bahrain last week after spending four months on RFA Wave Knight. The bad weather since I arrived home gave me the ideal excuse to stay indoors and set up my shiny new Alienware laptop (cost an arm and a leg but by God it powers its way through anything, I can even just about get flyable framerates in FSX with all the graphics maxed out!).Well anyway I took lots of pics while I was away, and I thought they might be of interest here.

I joined Wave Knight in Portland on 25th January. We were due to leave the UK the next week on the ORION 08 deployment to the Gulf, but due to problems with the crew of HMS Illustrious (the Death Star) being bloody useless we were delayed by more than two weeks. During that time we undertook duties as FOST tanker as RFA Orangeleaf had broken down...


The French frigate Commandant Blaison making her approach for a RAS in the South Coast Exercise Area (SCXA).


RFA Fort Austin making her approach on the Thursday War.


Dutch frigate Van Speijk in the SCXA.


The Death Star coming in for a RAS during the Thursday War (they failed their inspection and had to complete another week of sea training before they were given permission to deploy).

Finally on 15th February we were detached and along with HMS Westminster we started heading south. Along the way we met up with the Spanish warship Mendez Nunez and USS Cole. I did a crosspol with Westminster in the Bay of Biscay. I had a fantastic ride in their RHIB (a 50kt beast that spent most of the time airborne rather than in the water) and spent the day on Westminster. Being an aviation nut I took the opportunity to have a good look around their Merlin and chat to the pilots (although I didn't have my cam with me at the time - doh!).


Mendez Nunez and Cole approaching for a double RAS in the Bay of Biscay.


Very modern warship, much more capable than the clapped out old Type 42s!


The (in)famous USS Cole, another warship that could blow anything we've got right out of the water


Passing through the Gibraltar Strait.


RASing HMS Westminster in the Med.

We stopped in Alicante for three nights whilst Illustrious and Edinburgh caught up with us.


Alicante Castle as seen from the berth. We decided to walk up this one day, it's higher than it looks...

Next stop was Limassol in Cyprus for a "Delboy Run". We were in for just one night to load stores for the task group and the next day we did a Vertical Replenishment (VERTREP) to get everyone's baked beans and Mars bars delivered.


RFA Wave Knight Engineer Officers at the Sundowners the night before arriving at Limassol.


















Some pics from the VERTREP after leaving Limassol.

The main part of Orion Task Group consisting of HMS Illustrious, HMS Edinburgh, HMS Westminster, SPS Mendez Nunez and USS Cole transitted the Suez Canal together. RFA Diligence, HMS Atherstone, HMS Blyth, HMS Ramsay and HMS Trafalgar had transitted before us, and RFA Fort Austin was a week or so behind us. This was the first time a Wave Class vessel had deployed east of Suez. A little bit of history there.




Passing through the Suez Canal.


At anchor in the Great Bitter Lake waiting for the northbound convoy to pass through - imagine a big lake in the middle of the desert filled with dozens of ships of all shapes and sizes... very surreal.


The Egyptian Air Force coming to check us out.


Passing Port Suez at the bottom end of the Canal at the entrance to the Red Sea.


A murky day in the Red Sea.

The next stop was Djibouti for one night, but no shore leave! In the Gulf of Aden we did a group RAS which provided an opportunity for lots of PR pics.


Wave Knight, Mendez Nunez, Edinburgh and Jean Bart in the Gulf of Aden.


A double RAS with Mendez Nunez and Jean Bart.


Fort Austing RASing Illustrious with Cole coming alongside.

Next stop was Dubai for a ten day maintenance period.


The tallest building in the world, and they are still building it!


The world's only 7-Star hotel. Bloody expensive as you can imagine.


The day we left Dubai there was a large fire at a paper mill, I got these pics shortly before we left.


As we left Dubai RFA Bayleaf was on her way in for a maintenance period. A veteran of many years and a tired old lady.

After leaving Dubai we embarked upon a series of exercises, including EX HAJJAR OSPREY, EX PHOENIX, an overnight visit to Salalah in Oman and then off to the very high profile EX KONKAN with the Indian Navy. What was a real eye opener for me is how formidable the Indian Navy is - their warships are armed to the teeth and could quite easily blow ours out of the water!


Yours truly in the Machinery Control Room.


It's a shame they weren't Sea Harriers!




Rafting up with Diligence in the Gulf of Oman.


HMS Trafalgar coming up for air during EX PHOENIX.


We anchored off Goa and it was a ONE HOUR boat ride ashore... bloody typical.


38 degrees Celcius and 97% Relative Humidity is not in my comfort zone.


But the beaches were nice

After EX KONKAN finished we headed back to Fujairah in the UAE for another overnight stay before we took over from RFA Bayleaf as the Arabian Gulf Ready Tanker (AGRT). The next couple of weeks were spent RASing various warships...


Fujairah - 50 degrees Celcius, 15% Relative Humidity and gale force winds. This is how I imagine Hell to be.


USS Curts


and her Seahawk.


Surcouf in the Arabian Sea...


and her Dauphin.


PNS Badr and PNS Sharjahan (ex-HMS Alacrity and ex-HMS Active) in the Arabian Sea.




PNS Badr.

Finally at the end of May I paid off in Bahrain, enjoyed a very nice business class flight home on a Gulf Air A330 before arriving at a grey and rainy Heathrow!

Yo there!

Nice selection of shots.. especially Fort Austin and Bayleaf.. two ladies that were in service when I was in the Andrew 20 years ago and two of the few names I recognised (notwithstanding Lusty). Been there.. seen it.. done that ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

Ahhhhhhhhhh

Luxury..................................

Great shots mate

Regards
Rick

Brilliant photos mate. Thanks for sharing. Great to sea Harriers on the deck. Is PNS Bdar one of our old County Class?

Hi Folks

Nick -
Lovely set of shots.

WK looking embarrassingly rusty in places.

EDIT
Ben -
Badr is ex Alacrity, Amazon /T21 class.

ATB
Paul

What a truly great set of photos! I can almost smell the warm lube oil and uptake fumes once again. I hold a steam 2/Es ticket; I take it you're a motor man with a name like Pielstick...then again, its all motor ships these days, isn't it.

Seriously, this is one great set of pictures. Thanks for taking the time to post them.

Thanks everyone!

Talking to some of the Indian Navy blokes they are EXTREMELY proud of the Viraat (ex-HMS Hermes) which they've kept going. They've got some really heavily armed Russian warships now too. I was seriously impressed by just how professional the Indian Navy is and in some ways they put the RN to shame! We did a boardex with INS Mysore and their team was far more professional and competent than the boardex teams from Illustrious and Westminster. Can you believe the Indians still use Sten Guns? We also had a good laugh at the boarding team from USS Cole, they had plastic guns. I don't think their PO was very impressed when I told him I can't take them seriously when they have Fisher Price guns

Ben - The Badr and Sharjahan are old Type 21 frigates. I was really hoping to see PNS Tippu Sultan as this used to be HMS Avenger and was my brother's first ship. If you look closely you can see where the Pakistanis have fitted strengthening along the side of the hull, the Exocets have gone and been replaced with Harpoons and the Sea Cat has also gone and a Phalanx is now in its place.

Paul - yep there is a fair bit of rust there. You can blame that on the Choff who was more concerned with running everyone else's departments than looking after HIS deck. To be fair though the engine room and RAS gear is all in very good condition, and that's what matters!

Paul K - So you're a Steam Queen? CHEERS The RFA doesn't have any steam ships left now, I think we got rid of the last one in the late 90's. When I was a cadet (2003-2006) there were some BP cadets in my class who were doing dual steam/motor tickets so they can sail on the new LNG carriers. I'm off to do my Second's ticket in September next year. I just asked if I can get on Fort Austin or Fort Rosalie as I have no experience on slow speed two-stroke... I've only sailed on medium speed four-stroke and diesel electric.

Hey mate

Don't laugh as i rate the Sten well above the SA-80 as at least it's proper metal and won't break when you hit the enemy with it

probably more accurate than the SA too

Regards
Rick

Pielstick wrote: Paul K - So you're a Steam Queen? CHEERS The RFA doesn't have any steam ships left now, I think we got rid of the last one in the late 90's. When I was a cadet (2003-2006) there were some BP cadets in my class who were doing dual steam/motor tickets so they can sail on the new LNG carriers. I'm off to do my Second's ticket in September next year. I just asked if I can get on Fort Austin or Fort Rosalie as I have no experience on slow speed two-stroke... I've only sailed on medium speed four-stroke and diesel electric.

Steam Queen ! Blimey, its been a few years snce I heard that expression! ;-)

Yes, mainly steam: cape crawlers, LNG tankers to Japan and some smaller product carriers around the Pacific, South America and equatorial Africa. I did a couple of motor ships, a Thai-registered one with a Sulzer 9RD90 tooling around Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, and another with a bloody great B & W 10 cylinder on the North Sea. The only RFA I went on was in Plymouth Sound, but for the life of me I can't remember her name. She had a Doxford if I recall correctly, and served as an ammunition ship.

All in my distant past now. Great photo's matey !!

Brilliant photographs Pielstick, could feel the atmosphere of being there from them.

Tell me in all honesty, you didn't take that taxi!!

Regards
Nigel.