SAR at Khormaksar
I'm a bit late in adding to this thread but for what it is worth, I was a "rigger" at Khormaksar from May 65 until May 67 involved with SAR Flight initially on five Whirlwinds (can only remember XL 111 & XJ 726). Two returned to UK when the yellow painted Wessex XT 601, 2, 3 & 4 arrived in boxes. When assembled and declared serviceable it soon became apparent that they were not ideally suited to SAR work at that stage - no waterproof flooring and the winch had a tendency to "run away" when under load, only way to stop it was to select UP when the cable usually broke! The winch hook at that time was a fairly small affair with a spring loaded "keep" which could open of its own accord if a harness "D" ring twisted around the hook. Along with another member of the Flight I designed a Command Mod to remove the original hook and replace it with the well proven Whirlwind hook which remained fitted to the very end of the Wessex SAR role.