In ATC before moving on, I was fortunate to be offered a familiarisation flight on a Dan Air Comet. Great airline. Before we departed I asked why the fleet appeared to have differing expectations of where the initial turning point on the SID was. Hang on said the driver, all will become clear. After departure it was just as if someone had turned a tap on in the roof and water poured through the quilted headlining. Condensation said driver, we don’t really have an idea of exact position until the electrics have dried out. Later on in my “aviation career(?) “ I was on the flight deck of a Comet flown by Dan Air and we were called by ops to tell us that company traffic had burst a tyre a couple of hundred miles away but no replacement was available where they were. We were, therefore, required to drop our pax off at our original destination and pick up a wheel and tyre to rescue the sickened airframe before returning to pick up our original returning pax. Our very senior Captain didn’t blink an eye apart from a glance at the flight engineer sitting behind me and agreed to the plan despite it adding quite a lot to our duty day. Not like him at all. Nothing discussed on the flight deck apart from that and I was only a young lad. Cockpit gradient hadn’t even been invented..
Upon arrival at our original destination, inbound pax were unloaded and arrangements commenced to board the returns. At this point I asked.
All will become clear was an answer that I was familiar with. With all on board for our return trip and no sign of a spare wheel in either paper work or reality, it was time to start. After all these years, I can’t recall which of the donks refused but it did. A call to ops and we were relieved of the tyre run and told to try and fix it so that we could get back home. At this point the engineer got the front door opened and disappeared onto the apron with a massive sledge hammer which was always carried but I had had never seen in action before. The go button was pushed on the recalcitrant number but, once again, the starter stuck followed by a large bang from under the aircraft. On the third attempt, the “fix” worked and the starter was freed. We were on the way home but not before the engineer returned to the flight deck with a grin that was wider than I have seen since. Ops were told of our success and must have known what had gone on but I never heard anything more about it.
Great days Dan Air, thanks very much. Lots more stories but I had better not.