Shaken, not Stirred

So there I was, flying back from another secret mission (well not so secret actually) from Marsabit, with my IFF (Identification Friend or Foe, these days known as a transponder) set to 2-007, and imagining myself as James Bond.

My aircraft here is 5Y-PTL as you may recall from previous posts, and in our super secret internal code it is known as MAF-7. 7 of course being the perfect number and incidentally the number of months we have now been here.

On the outbound flight I had been given the squawk code 2-007 by Radar. Jolly decent of them. Squawk is the pilot shorthand for 'transponder' and I found out recently that it is so called because the first IFF technology used in WW2 was codenamed 'Parrot'. Hence the squawk. When I set the requested code on my transponder in the aircraft, that number appears next to my blip on the radar screen, thus helping the controllers know which blip is which. Ask the boffins down in Q division if you don't understand.

Anyway on my departure from Marsabit I had inadvertently left this code set, rather than reselecting the generic '2077' which is equivalent to the '7000' squawk used in the UK. Only one digit different, but enough to blow my cover.
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As it so happened, some friends of mine from AIMAIR were visiting Nairobi Radar that afternoon, and were having a tour of the area radar room. The controller was showing them how the blips and squawks are depicted on the screen when he suddenly broke off and said "Now look at that. That is MAF-7. He is being a naughty boy because he's still using the code we gave him this morning. He thinks he's James Bond."

Contrary to the opinion of my old neighbour in the UK (hope you're reading this Reg!) I am not actually a member of any British Government agency. But I can tell you one thing: unlike a Vodka-Martini, passengers prefer being stirred to being shaken...