I was on 13 Sqn at Luqa from 1965 - 1968, the 3 best years of my 22 in the mob, as an Inst Fitt(Nav). I spent God knows how many months on detachment to outlandish places, bloody wonderful time!
The Armourer Sgt who had the bang-seat mishap came to Malta with the Squadron, I remember his christian name was Dave, he had blond hair, although that was reputed to heve been brown prior to the incident. He also gained a form of notoriety when, one evening on a "night-flashing" exercise, one aircraft RTB'd with a reported 8in hang-up. He was on-call at home in Paola, but couldn't be found either by the duty driver or by phone! The aircraft stopped on the runway and the crew left it there, SATCO was mightily angry as the civvies used the same runway and something was due in soon, probably the Vanguard from LHR. For the life of me I cannot remember how it was resolved!
Times weren't all good, I clearly remember the a/c which went in at Luqa as a result of a heavyweight, assymetric overshoot, just after take-off. I believe that, when power was applied to the idling side, the engine surged, the a/c rolled and had insufficient height for recovery. I left the Sqn not long after, repat to UK, but I did hear that the manoeuvre was deleted from training requirements.
One of the funniest times was one evening when the Sqn T4 came back from a CT exercise, and parked. While I was taking the G-meter readings in the bomb-bay, with the obligatory panic when some ******** in the cockpit used the residual hyd power to move the bomb-doors, the duty leco pressed the "relight" buttond on the throttles. As it was a beautiful, calm, still evening, some fuel had pooled in the hot engines, vapourised and promptly lit off with the HEIU being activated. The ensuing comedy had to be seen to be believed! The Maltese civvy refeueller promptly reversed away from the aircraft, still pouring fuel from the nozzles, and the "firies" across the short runway took the opportunity to display their prowess and pumped untold gallons of foam into the engine intakes! No more CT until the double engine changes were done, which pissed off the CO as there was no requirement for the leco to have checked the cracker-boxes on an "after-flight" inspection.
The Canberra was a great a/c to work on, with the exception of recharging the oxy on the PR9 while the a/c was being refuelled. As sure as Christ, I'd be just about finished with the oxy when the weight of the a/c settlled the oleos and the TACAN antenna (I think) would dig into my shoulder, just below the neck. I still have scar tissue there!
Got to go, time to work, but I'll post more as I recall.
Kind regards,
TheNightOwl.
