Well, when there's a crew of four in one of HM's shiny new Sea Kings, none of us over 24, and with the combined common sense of a gnat.......
It seemed like a
really good idea at the time to try to recover a USN missile that we found, floating around the Carribean, in the AFWR (Atlantic Fleet Weapons Range). OK, what a trophy for the crew room
. Looker, get the grappling hook, let's use it on the end of the winch to trawl for the parachute, then recover the lot and wait for charlie time.
Any idea how long it takes for a Sea King downwash to fill a parachute? Any idea how fast a Sea King can fly sideways, whilst a Chinese parliament ensues as to the best way of losing a parachute before it gets into the rotors? Cut the cable? You have got to be joking, how would we
ever explain that away
Fortunately, the bending strain of a pusser's grappling hook is less than the shear load of a SK hoist. Even more fortunate, being allocated 5 spot allowed us to sneak the (very straight) hook down the port gangway to the workshops, for a rabbit job worth a few gulpers. To the best of our knowledge, that was one of our escapades that escaped the eagle eye of the Hierarchy
Then there was another crew who tried to catch a manta ray off Indonesia, and wrecked the winch cable before they retrieved the ray..........