Three Engines
On 23 July 1975 our Nimrod crew (Captained by Sqn Ldr Mannings an excellent pilot and gentleman) carried out a three engine take off from Diego Garcia. in XV263 for Gan, the flight time was 1.40 hrs. We had arrived at Diego the day before and a stone had gone in one of the engines. The choice was to change the engine at Diego or a three engine flight to Gan for an engine change, bearing in mind the lack of diversion airfields in the Indian Ocean. It was put to the vote and we all agreed we wanted to return to Gan. None of us wanted to stay on Diego with its drug and violence problems. The navigator by the way was "Ben" Lyon who had in the past been my captain on Shacks. "Ben" passed away in Germany about a year or so ago.
Runway Matting
Whilst I was based at Boscombe Down we did a weeks worth of taxiing followed by six flights on AM2 Runway Matting in July 1982 in XZ284. We had a five man crew onboard. One captain was Sqn Ldr John Brown, who according to my log book had been flying the Nimrod for over three years, and the other was Wg Cdr Strachan. There were no problems with the flights but I did not see the official report.