A different cold wx problem
Belize schedule, Mk3, home bound. Night stop Dulles, springtime because all the cherry blossom was out. Wake up to find over a foot of v heavy wet snow had fallen. Out at Dulles, Page, the handling agents, found our Herc looking like a Hastings with its nose in the air, sitting on the ramp hinge. Clearly the weight of wet snow on the tailplane had not been considered when the "stretch" had been carried out.
So the helpful chaps at Page got a cherry picker and brooms and set to brushing the snow off the tailplane so that when us boys in blue turned up Albert would be back to normal on an even keel!
In the words of the song, now we come to the tragic bit.
Unfortunately the cherry picker was positioned half an inch too close to Albert so that when the amount of snow was no longer sufficient to keep the tail down Albert pitched forward and the elevator trim tab contacted the cherry picker.
Return downtown to await a replacement trim tab!
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