There was a major upset on the S76A when they introduced the second dinghy. It was installed against the captains door and it blocked the car type ash tray assembly that was built in. I had to go to Halfords and buy a stick on car ash tray to keep me going.
I was bringing a S76A GBJVZ from Antwerp to Redhill. It was a very early S76 with a small centre consol and old fashioned instruments and OBS which didn't work. As the weather was a bit iffy I flew back in formation with Avgas who was flying the other fully equipped one.
The normal place where I put my fags and lighter was not available to I tucked them against a ledge which had a blanking plate for the Loran or something. All went well until it was time to light up and my lighter wasn't there. Fingers found a big gap under the blanking plate which my lighter had dived in to.
We had a little screwdriver gismo around our necks to undo the Zeus fasteners on the cowling so I eased out of the formation a bit and removed the plate. There was my lighter nestled amongst all the cockpit's electronics' wiring.
I recovered it and at that point my maps migrated off the left hand seat down onto the floor by the collective. I needed my maps in case we got separated so I eased out to about four spans and did the old Bristol Sycamore trick when changing pilots.
I unstrapped, eased myself up and sat on the centre consol. swung my legs into the port footwell and pushed myself over into the left seat. I recovered my maps and reversed the procedure to get back again.
The aircraft did exactly what it was told; kept perfect formation.
Coming into Gatwick it was an ILS and my kit didn't work. I cleared it with ATC so I did a formation ILS (1/2 span) on Avgas and we broke cloud at about 600ft.
It took me back to my stovie days when we did formation GCAs on Bingo fuel.