Photos
Nigel, I think it may be a bit of Oldtimer`s creeping in; Big M W had a total hyd failure in a WW and flew it back, probably no more difficult for him than flying a Sycamore. His tour was earlier than mine so I can`t say whether he had a t/r failure, but I`m sure scuttle-butt would have been around.The pics were taken by the ground-crew who had been winched up by the Eng.O who had supervised our engine change earlier in the day.I was last to leave, of course. It was on a pimple, so not easily repaired; The BOI offered $100 to any local who could find any bits... the whole t/r was recovered in about a week,and showed a clear fatigue fracture on the t/r blade spindle.
I recall having a wx trip to/from A, but I seem to think it was with a Lt Cdr., although when I first came on Pprune and saw one of your posts, there was a faint tinkling bell--- maybe it was the door!!
It was a WW that crashed E of K. ; The pilot was on his last days of tour, so was the nav, and they volunteered to take a couple of engineers to a u/s cab . The a/c had just done an airtest,after servicing, and the spindle-nut on the lateral jack came off, followed by a dive into the jungle.Assumed it hadn`t been locked properly.