ACW - I too suffered the rotor while visiting Dishforth in the 80's (ahh happy days) - took a 4000ft tow to Ripon but stupidly fell back a bit into the cloud. Cue immediate & horrendous rate of sink that threw me into a field a couple of kms from the airfield, clambered out of the aircraft to see my tug landing back - total time off tow was "not a lot"
Glad the pilot survived & gets back in an aircraft quickly, presumably he was in shock having not noticed the pain from the broken collar bone & collapsed lung
