Hockham Admiral:
I would just like to make a small historical correction to your piece on G-BEPE. The reason that she weighed so much was that she was the prototype and still had a lot of test wiring in the airframe. In fact she carried the first civilian Belfast registration with Shorts as G-ASKE.
In the pre-Heavylift days we had three Belfasts at Manston; G-BEPE (ex-XR362 "Samson"), G-BEPL (ex-XR369 "Spartacus") and G-BEPS (ex-XR368 "Theseus").
G-BEPS was the first civilian registered Belfast to fly (if we discount the "Short" time that G-BEPE/XR362 was G-ASKE during initial trials).
G-BEPL made a one-way flight to Hucknall and was swopped for (I believe) G-BFYU (XR367 "Heracles").
Heavylift also purchased G-OHCA (XR363 "Goliath") which was ferried to Southend and used for spares and G-HLFT (XR365 "Hector") which is the Australian based survivor.
Here endeth this historical lesson.