Originally Posted by
chevvron
At a guess I would say they are at either Stafford or possibly Ruddington; maybe even Syerston.
I've never seen the present winches used by Air Cadets; I believe they can have up to 6 cables.
I remember the days at Halton during a course when we would have 2 x twin drums parked side by side and the driver would jump in and out operating all 4 cables one after the other. We could sometimes use 2 x single drum V8 powered winches side by side too but usually that was normally on a separate 'line' some distance away; we were able to use the whole of the grass airfield in those days rather than just the narrower strips used nowadays.
The V8's had departed Kenley in the 60's but the 'folklore' they left behind suggested that they could 'shed' fan blades which promptly mated with the next door radiator. This would normally finish operations for the day, but on one occasion a decision was made to repair the rad with matchsticks to try and finish the days operations. Apparently this worked ok and yet another victory was claimed by the 'weekend warriors' .