What the **** was that moment.
We were bumbling along over Libya, 500 feet, 350 kts, bouncing around as the day warned up and taking radar fixes off sand dunes the the pilots could not even see.
Suddenly the nav kit went off line, my angle poise lamp went out and things seemed to go quiet. After a stunned WTFWT we realised the Ram Air Turbine had dropped out and shed non-essential loads which included the radar. We aborted and returned to Cyprus. We had to remain below 30,000 feet at the RAT, the high level emergency power generator was, to use a technical term, ****.
Back at base there was a distinct smell of burning and after a box change and replacement RAT fitted we were serviceable. All that remained was for an airborne check.
Now I am not sure why the skipper came up with the following plan:
We fuelled to full, we briefed to Fly another Libyan sortie, but he planned to climb to height to do a RAT drop to see if it worked.
It didn't.
Now had it actually worked we would then have flogged around Libya with it hanging out which would have **** it again, but no prob, it was still ****.
The problem now was we had 3 hours to burn off fuel, we could not fly above 30,000 ft or do anything useful. We flew round Cyprus. It were 'ot. To increase the fuel burn he came up with a cunning plan. Airbrakes out to high drag. Now that was in days before we knew about fatigue but must have been high on the F..k index.
When we landed I asked had the fuses been checked after the previous abort . . .
WTFWT
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