and said the Hercules reliability was much appreciated on 8-10 hour Atlantic met flights
When I was at Aldergrove the Bismuth flights would normally land back with just three engines. My father got the AFC after he had recovered a Halifax to Shannon after losing two over the mid Atlantic.
I remember that Hastings story in the fifties. Whilst I was training in the Provost T1 I was always wary when an aircraft taxied past me as the propeller plane passed my position.
An ex Panam Constellation had a similar problem abeam Belize where No 3 threw a propeller blade and the engine rotated into the wheel bay. No 4 received the debris and caught fire. It eventually landed with No 4 on fire on just the starboard main and nosewheel.
The captain was in tears; he had done a lot of time in it with Panam.
I've been told that airlines use remould tyres
They do. I believe that, on condition they are good for four remoulds. There was a standing joke that when they passed that limit Air India would buy them and get three more remoulds out of them.
I don't think that that was true.