The Argosy
Oh joy, spent nearly 3 years as an engine fitter on the devices, really quite a trouble free time engine wise, don't you hust love RR Darts, although we did upgrade to a later Dart variant to give more power in 63 ? started at Benson early 64, then Khormaksar with 105 Sqd April 62 - May 64, then short time back at Benson before moving on to Victors, Much fun with the beast, regular runs around the Middle East & down into Africa, didn't carry much & didn't go very high (lots of limitations) but could carry a freight bay full of toilet rolls on a fortnightly basis from K'Sar to Perim, soil from Kenya to K'Sar for the bosses garden, small loads of passengers but not the vehicles for the Army it was designed for (Saraccen/Salladin), did manage to get the low load fuel boswer in once though but it had to be empty, although it did eventually get signed off by Boscombe to have MAUW from 85,000 lbs's to 105,000 lbs mid 63, didn't make much difference though as it seemed to be a good VIP carrier but not a lot else !. Also had an oddity in XP409 in that it had a nail embedded in the fuselage, stbd side just above the fuselage datum, story goes that when the new Coventry Cathedral was consecrated back in 61, 6 big nails from the structure of the old Cathedral were presented each to 6 of Coventry's major industries , Armstrong Whitworth being one of them, first entry in the aircraft F700 was "nail in forward fuselage at station ???", still looking for pictures of the nail, mine have been long lost !. Re the comments about loading Hercules power plants for Valetta's, puzzled, we used to load them complete on stands for 233 Sqd on a regular basis to fly up country after their engine failures, can generate photo's to show.
My time came to an end just after XP413 was converted into a flying boat on the approach into K'Sar long story about finger trouble with an aircraft full of concrete ballast & the lack of ability to fly on only 2 engines on the same side, but as before that's another story.
Thought it was a nice aeroplane but that's just my opinion as an engineer. PH.