Regarding the Atlantic Conveyer I have to relate another interesting story.
One of my instructors at RAF Valley who I had a huge regard for was one of the pilots who came down to the Falklands with The Atlantic Conveyer as a newly fledged Sea Harrier pilot. These guys had done the absolute minimum of Harrier training and had been sent down to the South Atlantic to help us out.
The transfer of Sea Harriers from Atlantic Conveyer to HMS Hermes and Invincible required a vertical take off from Atlantic Conveyer and (obviously, a vertical landing on the designated carrier)
The vertical take off in a Harrier was an interesting manoeuvre.
It required the carefull and calculated handling of a colossal amount of power delivered to you in an incredibly short period of time.
For me this is twenty years ago but if I remember correctly, it was:
Slam to 55% (check accel time) Nozzles to 40 (Check duct pressure) Nozzles to the hover stop (without delay) Back to the throtlle and slam to FULL POWER!
Those of you who have flown high performance fighters will know what it is to get 21,000 pounds of thrust in approximately one and a quarter seconds!
I believe this particular individual forgot to move his nozzles to the hover stop and took off from Alantic Conveyer with 40 degrees of nozzle selected.
Miraculously, he survived, but like Tony Penfold took no further part in the proceedings.
These were terrific guys. John Leeming was amongst them.
He got involved in combat shortly after he arrived. He, apparently closed an A4 and tried to fire his missile. Sadly, he had forgotten to turn the electronics on but the gun switches were similar to the Lightning which he had just been flying so he switched these on and fired a complete magazine of 30 mm Aden rounds at the A4 and subsequently flew through the fireball!
ES