Ahem...puts on old lapun silly bugger hat..
In the days GKA had a tower we used to sit in the TAL office on foggy mornings (being badgered by Junior "What TF..you all gone f**ckin twitchy?")waiting for Dave in the tower (where is the nice fella?) to give Rocky a ring to say GKA is open!
We all scrambled out to various 185s and 206s ( the 402 driver Prawn on these sort of day would always be down at Beeps doing some grocery shopping for his missus) and taxy out to a totally fog enshrouded departure end of the strip
Take off and blat your way thru the fog and low cloud at the end of the strip and hopefully carry on to Chimbu ,Kianantu Marawaka wherever.
Seemed to work no one died
I have known of guys sneaking back in up the valley on the eastern side of the strip on ****ty afternoons BELOW the tower and rarking around to land downhill on 17
Also was a pilot who I know pretty well
getting an endorsement on a 402 from the in-imitable Pants
Up in the valley to the north Pants decided to give this guy a real work out so he failed both engines mixture cut
Unfortunately the ginger-beers had removed the un-feathering accumulators on this particular 402
Much starter mashing and battery flattening and no engine start ,Pants decided it may be a good idea to tell the tower he was for a dead stick straight in approach to 17
I cant remember how it turned out but no one died and nothing was bent.
Prolly got nothing to do with what happened to the 404 hopefully
