In the mid-eighties, when it was still fashionable to sell weapons to the war-torn
Middle East, Britain shipped 6 Harrier jump jets to Syria. During delivery,
these were landed in an airfield in Cyprus for the night, where they were to
be guarded by a crack squad of local Greek soldiers.
Sadly, this turned out to mean a couple of bored squaddies, one of whom decided
to impress his mate by doing "pull-ups" on the nose cone of one of
the? 20 million planes.
However, the radar spike proved to be less sturdy than he'd imagined, and it
immediately bent down 90 degrees, resisting all attempts to straighten it again.
Panicking at the damage he'd caused, the un-named private then adopted a course
of action worthy of the Victoria Cross for stupidity. He walked down he line
of 6 jets, bending the radar spike on each one. He claimed, at his subsequent
court martial, that he had "hoped nobody would notice the difference if
they all looked like that"