Chickenlover,
yes it could indeed be three linked loads as my log book testifies. As I mentioned in a previous thread 'kissing the DZ ' was not that unusual when dropping the three. We used to drop ULLA at South Cerney, not exactly the largest DZ. To do this we needed to stop the traffic on the road. Initially the police were very resistant to this idea. Then we took the Traffic Super with us on a drop. Like anyone else who sees ULLA or any heavy drop for the first time when we landed his eyes were the size of dinner plates and he was temporarily bereft of speech. No problems with stopping the traffic after that. But dropping at South Cerney in the winter could be interesting as the load skidded across the frozen grass and take ages to stop.
I was the ALM on the famous high level ULLA drop on Knighton Down on the plain. When dropping ULLA we used to stream a drogue on the descent into the DZ. The captain did the flying, the co the power and the eng did the switching for the drop. The drogue then used to pull the main parachutes (modified Vulcan brake chutes) of the ramp and load was extracted at high speed. On this drop the drogue was streamed and almost immediately the load (triple ULLA) went walkabout. I called 'load moving' to an incredulous captain but he could already feel the trim changes. As the load went I scampered to the ramp in time to see a large plume of spray rise vertically in the air as our load of jerry cans of water disintegrated. Lovely sight !
We did high level para that same day in the afternoon and you could easily see the scar on Knighton Down.
So what went wrong ? Initial suspicions were directed at the Eng as he did the switching for the drop. He was very experienced and adamant that he had not touched anything. The cause was soon found. When the drogue is streamed a device between it and the main parachutes only operates when the eng does his switchery bit. Then the drogue pulls the main chute off the ramp and the load exits. In this case the 'Y' shaped connecting yoke had had snapped allowing the drogue to operate on the main chutes irrespective of any switching. We later found out that it (and others) had been incorrectly manufactured, something that could not be detected when it entered the supply chain.
ULLA was never used by the standard 'K' squadrons although that had been the original intention, as the flying hours needed for training could not be funded. However all the a/c were modded as if ULLA was to be in universal use.