Ref #50. The Marine Corps KC130 crew were in the BX, Mess, Etc with only the Air Eng at the aircraft when drama happened. He managed to get hold of crew and had the engines running before the rest of the crew arrived to Scramble just in time to assist. The approach back to Lajes was on the fumes over the sea at VERY low altitude to the NW runway.
A potentially similar event occured to the RAF in Nov 1986. We had deployed 2 VC10K3s and 2 VC10K2s to Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico to recover 10 Buccs from Ex Caribbean Cutlass. The VC10K2s had to route via Lajes due to insufficient fuel to go direct to RR. The first K2 landed without a problem, but the second, which arrived 30 mins later, had to make several approaches to get in due to the bad weather that had appeared unforecast.
3 days later we launched for the recovery from RR to Lajes as waves of a VC10K2, a VC10K3 and five Buccs. Due to Wx problems there were no Jetplans or Weather info (phone lines flooded), but decision was made to launch, RV at height out of the weather and get weather forecasts en-route. There was a complete clusterf**k in the predawn darkness which caused us, in the lead tanker, to launch, only to find the rest of the wave was delayed by at least 30 mins. The formation eventually joined up 200 miles NE of RR, but still with no weather forecasts for Lajes or Santa Maria.
After the first AAR Bracket it was discovered that the Formation Fuel was very close to the minimum required to continue. Planned Tailwind was actually (unusually for the North Atlantic) a Headwind.
After the second AAR Bracket, still with no weather forecasts and still with the headwinds, the formation was now on minimum fuel to continue. Bearing mind the weather problems at Lajes outbound the only way to alleviate the situation was to reduce the formation fuel burn, which could only be achieved by one tanker leaving the formation. So after transferring all available fuel to the Buccs in an unscheduled bracket we diverted to the "tropical paradise" of Bermuda. The rest continued to Lajes where Wx was fine. The inevitable criticism of the decision which had "obviously been made in the bar the night before" was only stemmed when the Gold 11 story appeared in Air Clues a couple of months later!!
There but for the Grace of God etc.
Incidently I did get a photo of BEagle dancing with a BA hostie by the hotel pool, but since it was West of 10W it obviously did not happen!
