Pontifex -
It was to take a Nimrod out to 29 Palms via Yuma
I was on that trip. We left BD on 25 Jun 82 and returned on 04 Jul 82, with Ernie B the captain of XV227. When we operated off the AM2 the BD chaps wanted the aircraft as heavy as possible, but not to spend hours in the air with all that fuel - so, the solution was to nip behind a convenient hill and dump as much as possible. The US Marine in charge of the fuel farm was amazed at how thirsty RR Speys were....