TEAMS from across the country put their backs into a challenge to pull a 70-tonne aircraft as part of a RAF fun day on Saturday.

Twenty-five teams of 20 men and women competed to pull a VC10 over 75 metres in the fastest time at 99 Sqaudron’s annual family event at RAF Brize Norton, near Carterton.

Organiser Flight Lieutenant Simon Belmont said they were hoping to raise more than last year’s total of £25,000 for the British Limbless Ex-Servicemen’s Association (Blesma) and the Royal Air Force Association.

Station Commander Dom-onic Stamp pulled the plane with the Brize Norton Ladies team.

He said: “It was hard work, but once it started moving it was not so bad.

“The challenge was good for the station as it brought us together in a uniformed competition which is good for morale.

“But a lot of the teams here are from the community – it is not only the base here, it’s our extended family.”

He added: “Our servicemen and women of the station spend an awful lot of time away from home in some pretty hostile places which means their families are left on their own.

“Events like this offer a bit of pay back to families and gives them a greater understanding not only of what we are doing but why we are doing it.”

Wing Commander Simon Edwards, 99 Squadron leader, said: “We ask so much of our servicemen and they could not do it without the support of their families and the fun day is a real opportunity to pay back that debt to them.

“It was very impressive. We pulled the Hercules last year and that was tough, but this one is much bigger and more challenging.”

The winning team was 216 Squadron with a time of 37.41 seconds.

Riflemen Jack Otter, 22, from Enfield, lost three limbs when he was injured by an homemade bomb in Afghan-istan in September last year.

He said: “I had never been to something like this before. It is quite heartwarming that people want to do stuff for the injured.”

Blesma Officer Manager Frank Garside said: “We support the injured for life. Our youngest member is 19 and our oldest is 99.”

A team from Devon and Cornwall Police were raising money in memory of Mark Marshall, an Exeter PCSO, who was killed in Afghanistan in February while serving with the Territorial Army.

His mother Lynn Marshall, 57, said: “He really loved Afghanistan and really felt he was doing something good.

“The forces have become our friends now and it’s just one large family.”

Ninety-nine squadron fly out to Afghanistan everyday supplying the army with tanks, helicopters, ammunition and troops.