Don't touch it until I say "Now"

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CharlieOneSix
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Re: Don't touch it until I say "Now"

#41 Post by CharlieOneSix » Tue Oct 22, 2019 11:52 am

Pontius Navigator wrote:
Tue Oct 22, 2019 11:09 am
To answer my question above, looks like it could carry 130 paratroopers.......
......or probably double that number in Air Training Corps cadets ;))). In the very early 60's I flew in them on several occasions from Thorney Island. Always seemed packed to the gunwales with cadets!
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Re: Don't touch it until I say "Now"

#42 Post by Rossian » Tue Oct 22, 2019 11:54 am

Re Beverley:
I had a captain who had lots of tale about it - how he took the Lord Mayor of London's coach to Denmark with all its gilt and glass. Another "I wish I'd been there to see it" was in South Africa when the base commander asked if it would be possible to have a cocktail party in the hold. Of course! As it was in full cry captain is a little bit away and noticed to his horror that the F/E (it wouldn't be anyone else would it?) had taken a young lady in short cocktail dress and heels out of the hatch in the boom to admire the view from higher up and they went for a shortstroll along the boom. Fortunately she had a good head for heights and after a "polite" summons from capt. "I don't think that's a terribly good idea, Eng" they came back to safety. Phew!

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Oh he also mentioned being passed by trains as they plodded up the Rhone valley against the Mistral.

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Re: Don't touch it until I say "Now"

#43 Post by Rwy in Sight » Tue Oct 22, 2019 12:53 pm

CharlieOneSix wrote:
Tue Oct 22, 2019 11:52 am
Pontius Navigator wrote:
Tue Oct 22, 2019 11:09 am
To answer my question above, looks like it could carry 130 paratroopers.......
......or probably double that number in Air Training Corps cadets ;))). In the very early 60's I flew in them on several occasions from Thorney Island. Always seemed packed to the gunwales with cadets!

I have few similar stories with the crews of the C-130 doing the northern run on Fridays. I volunteered for the cargo/pax office of an Air Force base so on Fridays I was either travelling or assisting with the route. We were allocated about a dozen of seats we always had a waiting list, a list for potential pax when the waiting list become too long and we never left a pax behind.

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Re: Don't touch it until I say "Now"

#44 Post by 4mastacker » Tue Oct 22, 2019 3:17 pm

I travelled on the last scheduled Beverley flight from Abingdon to Wildenrath and return - it was a training trip as part of my movers course. T'was bloody cold on the return trip sitting in the tail boom with a thick layer of ice on the inside of the cabin window - no cabin heating and a hangover generated in MG the previous night didn't help. Most of the pax were staffers from 38Gp getting their 'bottle and 200' in time for Xmas. On return to Abingdon, the aircraft was met by a customs rummage crew who literally took the aircraft apart looking for contraband - the customs man who stood on the bandstand and undone an overhead panel got a face full of cables and other bits of gubbins. We had to stand beside the aircraft whilst the search was carried out. Hangover plus hanging around on the pan for two hours on a cold November evening was not the most exhilarating of experiences.
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Re: Don't touch it until I say "Now"

#45 Post by Pontius Navigator » Tue Oct 22, 2019 3:45 pm

I once watched a rummage crew on my father's ship. He was the first mate and I was about 10. Fascinating to watch (and join in).

One stash was taped to the top of the truck on the foremast 150 feet up - higher than I dared to go. Down on the QMs deck they found a small stash of fags. The cabin walls were double skinned but only went down to a few inches off the deck. The gap was filled by a raised metal section that was slightly higher than the walls. They had balanced a small stash of fags on this section.

A customs officer went along the alley way with an inverted walking stick knocking all the packets onto the deck in the cabin. They left them there, nothing said, but message received and understood.

Another stash had been suspended in a ventilator shaft and secured with string. They cut the string and the contraband dropped to the deck below. More was placed on top of the hot air trunking outside the cabins.

Good game I thought and climbed onto the handrail and had a look on top. I found another stash that had need hidden after the first had been found.

In all something like 250,000 cigarettes were found.

The crew were rounded up and threatened. Eventually one man, the most unpopular, owned up. As there was no way he could have accumulated that much loot that ploy didn't work.

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Re: Don't touch it until I say "Now"

#46 Post by boing » Tue Oct 22, 2019 7:10 pm

OK, who's going to comment on the Hastings? The only transport aircraft I've flown in where you could watch the countryside passing by through the gap around the passenger loading door.

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Re: Don't touch it until I say "Now"

#47 Post by Pontius Navigator » Tue Oct 22, 2019 7:20 pm

Lovely aircraft, definitely needed an FE. Of a new pilot on the a an "he needs a bit more muscle for the round out"

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Re: Don't touch it until I say "Now"

#48 Post by ian16th » Tue Oct 22, 2019 7:25 pm

Flew to Karachi & back in a Haystack, 3 days each way.

Worked on a few as well at Istres/Orange and my 6 week posting at Dishforth. Where I was the only Air Radar Fitter (Bomber) in Transport Command!
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Re: Don't touch it until I say "Now"

#49 Post by Sisemen » Wed Oct 23, 2019 1:00 am

Hastings - a Handley Page ‘thought bubble’ emanating from a need to use a stockpile of Halifax bomber wings and engines left over from the war.

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Re: Don't touch it until I say "Now"

#50 Post by ian16th » Wed Oct 23, 2019 11:01 am

Sisemen wrote:
Wed Oct 23, 2019 1:00 am
Hastings - a Handley Page ‘thought bubble’ emanating from a need to use a stockpile of Halifax bomber wings and engines left over from the war.
I read somewhere that it was a tail dragger, because the Army insisted that it could carry a Jeep, and it could only be done strapped under the nose.

As a matter of interest, the Haystack was the 2nd a/c type in my virtual lying flogboook! After a couple of 'air experience flights' in Anson's, during Boys Service, we Yatesbury lot had an hour or so in a Hastings flying from Lyneham.
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