Air Force Afghanistan E06 (2009)

There are emotional scenes tonight at RAF Honington. The Air Force WAGs say goodbye to their men, who are leaving for a tour of duty guarding Kandahar air base in Afghanistan.
But whether the girls left at home will be reassured by this new documentary series about life at Kandahar is doubtful - now not only do they have the Taliban to worry about, there’s the Thai massage parlour on the base to occupy their waking thoughts.
When one of the new arrivals describes the surprisingly well-equipped Kandahar as being like a summer camp, he’s right in some respects.
There’s American football, ice hockey (without the ice), a pizza bar that’s open till 2am and a weekly market where you can go to be ripped off by the locals.
In fact, everything about this series - from Dexter Fletcher’s jokey, blokey voiceover to a lengthy report on Kandahar’s Strongest Man contest - seems designed to distract us from the serious purpose of the troops’ presence.
But all those jets, bombers and unmanned reconnaissance planes on the base aren’t simply elaborate fairground rides, and occasionally the war is allowed to intrude on proceedings. As the new boys make their first, nervous mission outside the wire, pilot Richard Hillard takes to the air in a Harrier GR9 jump jet laden with rockets and bombs weighing over 2,000lb.
His mission is to take some aerial photos - until he gets a call that the ground troops are under attack...

[@stevecowham1017]

Hope all well with Jones' daughter. As an ex II bloke, all the best mate.

[@fozyk1099]

I would've loved to see the car wash area.
Of all 6 episodes, haven't seen a single clean car.
C-130 was much cleaner than the cars at the base.

[@iainmcfarlane1115]

Thanks for posting only saw a couple of episodes when it was on the telly

[@johnnunn8688]

‘He puts the engines into reverse’. Well, that’s a neat trick. 🤦‍♂️

[@rickshaw462]

Last episode he's stated that a GBU-12 travels at 4 times the speed of sound.

[@johnnunn8688]

@@rickshaw462, I only watch it to spot the nonsense. Which is a shame because it could be such a good channel.

[@dannyg2360]

A bit pedantic. Like many modern turboprop powered aircraft C130s have something called Beta where the pitch of the blades can be changed to redirect the thrust forward; even giving the aircraft the ability to taxi backwards. Remember that these programmes are not necessarily watched solely by nerds and spotters.

[@johnnunn8688]

@@dannyg2360, calls me pedantic, then proceeds to agree with me!
PS I’m neither a nerd, nor a spotter, aircraft engines happen to be my trade.

[@dannyg2360]

@@johnnunn8688 - Engines? Trade? Not difficult though is it John. Suck, Squeeze, Bang, Blow. ;-) PS. I too was 31 years an aircraft engineer before retirement.

[@KillerKane0]

I think you are missing a couple of episodes.

[@blackghost6796]

Hated seeing all the ammo being blown up like sort it and send it back to the countries it belongs to so it can be used

[@Fallout-pv5lr]

ah yes, of course they have forklift certification

[@charliesmith5646]

Ah

[@doc8178]

Why does Sgt Jones not know how to wear a beret correctly?

[@captainhindsight8779]

RAF Reg…

[@user-xt9kl1vm3z]

Mess with a Ghurka at your peril!