Summary: Traditionally the phrase Brass Monkeys goes hand in hand with weather so cold that only a naughty sounding description like, “It’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey,” will suffice. If, however, you were the crew member a NATO aircraft in Europe during the tense times of the Cold War, Brass Monkeys meant something very specific! It was a code phrase that everyone knew of and listened out for on the Guard frequency just in case it was broadcast. Two or three minutes into the flight Rikki was super-sonic and climbing through twenty thousand feet or so when the first “Brass Monkeys” call came over the radio: “Brass monkeys, brass monkeys, aircraft heading east at high speed fifty miles east of Gutersloh, brass monkeys”. He ignored it!<br> <br> <br> The true origin of Brass Monkeys has been lost in time<br> <br> <br> <br> The identification papers of defector Viktor Belenko<br> <br> <br> <br> Map of the East/West German airspace<br> <br> <br> <br> An F84<br> <br> <br> <br> West German Navy Sea Hawk<br> <br> <br> <br> A Lightning F3 landing<br> <br> <br> <br> Mig 21s chasing<br> <br> <br> <br> Returning safely<br> <br> <br> <br> Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Louis-Philippe Crépin, images in the Public Domain, the CIA, the RAF, Rosario Van Tulpe, Milborne One and Mike Freer.<br> <br>
