Thanks for the details and corrections, chaps, Urban Myths do seem to be easier to recall than mathematical facts when One Is A Certain Age !
Interesting tho'.
I also recall a certain 707 Training Captain testing a students' ability to deal with a runaway stabiliser, he ran the trim "aircraft nose down" and the aircraft obeyed with alacrity. The student promptly called "Runaway Stabiliser" then physically stopped the trim wheel by hand and called for the console switches to be cut off, and the circuit breaker on the overhead panel to be pulled. All completed expeditiously and correctly as per the check list procedure. Trouble was - the waters off the South Coast were rapidly growing bigger in the windscreen, so the drill was reversed, except .... whilst attempting to pull out of the now rapid dive the G force was such that the F/Eng. couldn't get his hand up high enough to re-set the circuit breaker on the overhead panel.
Eventually, with Captain and co-pilot both pulling back, and the F/eng. assisting by holding both control columns with one hand on each side, and bracing his feet on the bottom of the instrument panel in some manner, (I was told) they pulled out close enough to the surface of the sea to enure that the check list was amended to remove the command to pull the circuit breaker.
It's easy to say that they should have relieved the G force by pushing further forward, altitude was in short supply - and you weren't there !