I have been away for a very pleasant week on a River Seine cruise and am now just catching up with the wonderful posts. The story of the cobra under the bungalow had the hairs up on the back of my neck. When I was on 48 at Changi with the C130 we would sometimes get large swamp monitors up the nosewheel bay. The SOP was to send for pop the Chinese 'caretaker' to get it down. It probably ended up in the lunchtime curry!
We had a lightning strike in the C130 abeam Brno and I saw the ball of lightning roll down the fuselage. As we could hear a banging on the fuselage we diverted there. The strike had broken the HF Ae at the fin attachment and it was thrashing over the wing. The G/E disconnected it at the other end, rolled it up and stowed it in the a/c. It was not until we got back to Lyneham that a small exit hole was discovered high up on the fin.
Crossing the Indian Ocean and seeing the cu nims clib faster than you could and they were always bang on your track.
Chugalug's description of the problems involved in loading the Hastings reminds me what a benefit the arrival of the Hercules was for the Loadmaster and the movers.
I went to the Palm Springs Aviation Museum and was fortunate to be able to chat with some of the old boys and get a look around the B17 there. They started it up to move it across the airfield. However one outboard would not start but they moved anyway. Sure enough as they turned cross wind it weathercocked and they were stuck.
My only taildragger experience was with my Super Cub, but it would always want to swap ends in any croswind ! You could only relax once the chocks were in and you were outside admiring it. Great fun though.