Answers to bits and bobs
Just found thread and spent last night reading through. Although not Changi, before my time, may be able to answer some bits.
AOB - You need to pull 2g at 60AOB to maintain level. Lockheed pub said 60AOB was imposed to limit g required to below ac g limit. 45AOB with flaps down was for some other structural limit but memory gone on that one.
ULLA - dropped and taught(day drop then dummy passes at night to get used to flying at 10 feet before live drop) on lots of drops. 3ULLA had gone so only 2ULLA. Easy to drop and quite accurate as to stop point of the load. Trim change wasn't too bad as although stick forward at 10 feet as the load moved, in the dark, as load went ac ballooned upwards and you weren't pushing into the ground. Difficult not to hover over or follow through on the controls if teaching but that would have been poor instructing. My brief to handling pilot was that if the wheels touched just squeeze away from the ground rather than pull as I didn't want to increase deck angle if load went.
Only had one nasty. Drogue deployed on run-in and ALM reported it had deployed. Unfortunately on release the strop had wrapped around the bag preventing chute deployment and in the dark the ALM could see that strop was taut and assumed chute had deployed. Load obviously didn't goat green-on. Flying at 10 feet, in the dark, with a live load, towards KVL hangar, with my glider in it, was a bit fraught until ALM made things safe.
It was found that some of the strops used during an ULLA drop weren't to correct spec and we had been lucky by using training weights but a op weight drop could have gone very badly wrong. We didn't need the capability and the Army were asked to pay for new design, development and testing of new strops. They declined. End of ULLA.
HSP. Probably dropped the last one. As newbie on HOEU was given the job of trialling a new HSP. Went to BZN to see the beast. Platform framework was rectangular with no chamfer and I wasn't convinced that it wouldn't hit the raised door if it tilted at all on final phase of extraction. Platform was brought to LYE and after loading and unloading lots of times and with much head scratching and muttering it was scrapped!!!!! Couldn't believe they had gone this far without aircrew input.
Old HSP was built from bits at BZN and plan was to do three trial drops, two under ballast and then a live load. Previous drop some years before hadn't gone well when the load moved but took a long time, and subsequent large and prolonged trim change, before going. I believe this was put down to the final restraint strop, designed to snap, being wet and therefore stretching quite a bit before snapping. Handling notes read by myself and Nav. Co was to handle throttles and advance, without being told, if the IAS dropped off rapidly. Handling pilot was to have both hands on the stick and had to achieve full forward stick within 1.5 seconds IN AN ATTEMPT TO CONTROL THE PITCH ATTITUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The two ballast drops were cancelled for various reasons. The live drop was scheduled to fit in with a VIP drop demo and although poor trial procedure we were told to go ahead with the live drop! As you might guess, not all went well. Load moving and trim change was interesting but easily managed. Load went out then load transfer failed. Live load, HSP plus Scimitar tank came down vertically gun first. Not helped by a couple of chutes failing, probably through airsteal. Impact was quite impressive according to ground party. Platform and tank then fell onto its back, upside down. Very bent gun and tank. End of HSP. (Colonel who owned the tank wasn't happy, even less happy when AD Staffie was heard to say, "oh well, that's trials work for you". I have some pics but they are on an external HD that isn't playing at the moment.