However, mistakes were still being made. Stn Cdr 'Tojo' had a HYD fail on take-off just after retracting the landing gear. He then closed the throttle and put the gear down without doing the STUPRECCC drill first. No Datum Shift, so the jet immediately plunged towards Treaddur Bay....with an innocent passenger in the back. Fortunately as it accelerated it had just enough pitch authority to level out and start to climb before he remembered the Stby Trim... Tojo flew the Hunter by preference thereafter.
At the time of the incident I was a Sgt ATechA on night-shift in the Gaydon Hangar and we carried out a hyd pump change on that aircraft. It was SOP at that time to just carry out a quick ground run to check the pump came on line and for leaks etc. Came in the following evening to hear all sorts of kerfuffle and accusations had gone on following the incident until it was revealed that the pump's quill-shaft had sheared when the engine reached full-bore. As a consequence, a requirement to carry out a full bore run after a pump change was introduced.
'73 to '77 happy days on 4FTS.