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Newforest: Many thanks - I have ordered this photo!
Antarctic Incident 1950's
In the 50's my godfather served as Chief Pilot for Christian Salvesen's whaling expeditions in the Antartic flying the Mk I Westland Whirlwind (S-55).
He had reached the outer extremity of his spotting sortie about an hour away from the vessel (either the
Southern Harvester or
Southern Venturer) when the MRGB depleted itself of its precious content!
The flight manual instruction for such an event was (I believe) to land immediately. Turning to his observer my godfather indicated his preference to remain aloft as opposed to placing the Whirlwind upon the frigid seas a good 80nm from the ship and to which course of action the observer readily agreed.
Just over an hour later they landed back at the ship and when eventually a message was radioed through to Salvesen's base at Leith Harbour on South Georgia island the engineers were at first disbelieving of the event.
Word got back to Westlands that one of the 'Antarctic Whirlwinds' had flown for over an hour with no fluid in its MRGB and they too were astonished by the claim.
Westlands, unable to rationalise this performance, ended up by dry running a Mk I gearbox for more than 6 hours before it seized!
S.