Way back in 82, I was a baby hooker working with the spanking new Wokka, lifting the jawdropping CVRT's from a cutting somewhere near Upavon. Imagine driving down a road with woods to your left when you come across a cutting about three football pitches long, this was the LS. Task was to rig and hook up a couple of baby tanks. USLC was followed to the letter, the acft arrived on time and we hooked up the first tank.
The whining of a Chinook at MAUM brings a tear to my eye, but anyway off staggered the cab with the tank flying some good NOE (10ft max). The acft never climbed, it just settled for a very flat departure and charged at the road, and the plain beyond - but oh so slowly. The crew would never been able to look left then right then left again as they (the tank) crossed the road because of the high trees. The truck driver on the road had a near death experience as 10+ tons of fighting machine floated across in front of him. We thought the whole episode strange, so had a good look over tank number two. It looked like the picture, we had the correct slings, it was a nice day. What went wrong? JATE never test flew CVRT's with mud on them or completely 'bombed' up. In the field we never took scales with us. It was 'weigh' too heavy.
Lesson learned, note to JATE, moved on. Never lost a load in 11 years of 'hooking'.