Skylion
Interesting snippet on the CAA wing-fold.
Obviously the RAF Valettas were essentially similarly sparred but, while, after the CAA accident, the Vikings had their spars strengthened (doubler plates??), the Valettas were unmodified - until, that is, we lost one, again to a wing-fold, coming out of Aqaba. All were then grounded and examined. From memory, out of our fourteen aircraft, 12 had cracked main spars and/or wrinkled wing skins!!
We were night-stopping in Bahrein when the grounding was signalled. The local engineers checked it over and S Eng O declared that it was serviceable for a one-time trip back to Khormaksar. This was agreed to - as long as S Eng O came with us! I seem to recall a considerable interest in the condition of the visible bits of the wing while en-route, especially bouncing around at 8K in the usual turbulence