Easter Camp 2000: RAF Cosford

26 April - 3 May 2000

Camp Photo

Units Present
200 DFTotnes
722 SqnChivenor
876 SqnBrixham
1064 SqnHoniton
1146 SqnBarnstaple
1182 SqnShepton Mallet
1322 SqnNewton Abbot
2401 SqnDawlish

Report by Cdt J Stedham

722 Squadron were well represented at RAF Cosford his year: 10 cadets of the 37 present were from Chivenor. Flying Officer Cole and AWO Hoole also came. As no NCOs from 722 Sqn attended the camp, Cdt Shearsby and Cdt Livingstone were made Acting Corporals for the week.

The activities we took part in included section visits, swimming, ice skating, an all-day navigation exercise, three excellent night exercises, Bulldog flying, and everyone's favourite: L98 shooting.
The section visits included the Police Dog Section, Fire Section, and the School of Photography. We also visited Cosford's air museum, which was excellent but, much to our dismay, lacked a working ejector seat that we could try out. During our section visits, we all got to find our block on an aerial photograph of the base, saw some worrying teeth marks and the dogs responsible for them, and we all got a good soaking from the fire hoses.

On our day out, we had a chance to hit each other with swimming pool floats, show off our ice-skating skills, and show off our blisters when we got back to the base.

Dry training with L98s using dummy bullets was fun, but nothing beats firing 10 rounds in 30 seconds, then realising the rifle's recoil has pushed you back three feet. Cdt Quick didn't have much luck with his rifle, as he held it wrong and gave himself a black eye, but even he enjoyed shooting.

The night exercises were excellent, thanks to the RAF regiment, several hundred blank rounds and the occasional smoke grenade. My favourite part of the week was on the night exercise when we encountered a casualty with a grenade strapped to him, and Sgt. Clarke had an excellent idea:

"Roll him onto his front, so if it goes off we'll all survive!"

Everyone laughed, except our casualty...