Shackman
Don't remember why or when we were lifting it
I may well be wrong (old age, etc) but one possibility is that the picture is from very late 82 or v early 83 and the underslung F4 was one that had been very very badly damaged in an interesting cable engagement in the early days of Phandet. As I heard it the cable whipped upwards on hook engagement and into the leading edge of the horizontal ('ish) stab, - I think CM was there at the time and will no doubt have the full story. As a result of that unforeseen nasty incident/near accident we inherited a policy of "hook down, stay down" from the original Phandet crews (rather than performing a "bolter") if we thought we'd missed the approach end cable(s).
I seem to recall a Chinook being used to lift the airframe from the airfield and carrying it out to a ship to be repatriated.
Hercdet used to run a sweepie to see how long the tanker would have to wait, engines running, before the QRA got airborne.
Hat,coat.
"Oldageand....." Err, Well in our defence at least we had the good grace not to block the runway at midpoint by collapsing a nose wheel.....oh how the guys who were already airborne without tanker support laughed .....
still, it all worked out ok in the end....
