Me and my Valiant was trundling around the racetrack in the early sixties with two Lightnings when they were first starting refuelling training. The No1 came in, did his dry contacts and then took some fuel to keep him going whilst he waited for his No2 to do the same thing.
We waited for him to engage. The nav radar, who had the refuelling kit was reporting nothing. Eventually the silence was broken.
"You're not going to believe this. I've brought up an aircraft without a probe."
Two Lightnings rapidly exited stage right for Wattisham.
What had happened was that the Squadron was in the middle of the probe mod program. The No2 has been issued with a probe aircraft but this had gone US on startup. He had rushed into the line hut, 'Givvussanotherone, chief' and then had got into a pre-mod aircraft. He should have known when he didn't bang his head on the probe getting in.
On the last ever Valiant/Lightning refuelling and also the last Valiant tanker flight, (me again) the Lightning from Leconfield had the droque come off the hose whilst he was engaged. The droque had all the valves in so an open pipe pumped fuel at 5000lbs/min into his intake. This put at least one engine out and again two Lightnings exited stage right in a hurry. The one with the droque on his port wing apparantly had considerable difficulty landing the aircraft back at base, in the dark.
Last edited by Fareastdriver; 26th July 2012 at 13:31.