XS637
 

During my tour of AFNorth 77-80 on the CinCs Staff I flew in the Andover on quite a few occasions.
Oslo-Copenhagen was a regular as was Oslo-Kiel and Oslo and all points north.
The aircraft was hangared at Fornebu and the Captain was, if my memory serves me right, Roy Bransbury and the Navigator Dave Bennett
The Ground Crew provided the inflight refreshments which were the same every trip,a selection of open sandwiches,sticky buns, tea and coffee.
Reference Duty Free,yes it was available at Kolsas but wine was a great deal cheaper in a German Naafi Shop and therefore full advantage of this was taken whenever a flight was made to Germany.
Happy memories of the crew and the aircraft and of a great 3 years in Oslo.

AFNORTH Oslo Andover XS 637 - Ascot 5999/1066
 

Good times indeed. I was a member of the crew 73-76. Captain was Bernie Donders, co-pilot Bill Tate, nav David Bray and crew chief Graham Leatham. Sadly we have lost Bernie and Graham. But Bill, Dave and I still meet up.


An outstanding tour. The aircraft was supplied by 46 Sqn, but paid for by NATO when operational. The aircraft was provided to support CinC North and we flew him from the very north of Norway to Rome and Naples. Many weekends free in Copenhagen. Aircraft kept, in our time, at Fornebu (Oslo civil airport) but moved to Gardemoen after we left.


A tough tour, but someone had to do it. The best tour with the best people in my 37 years service.


Pip pip


ON

"A bit of useless information but the entrance to the hangar was too low for the tail to go under. Some bright spark came up with the idea of a ramp for the nose wheel inside the hangar just at the point where the tail was about to go in which tipped the tail down and popped it back up when inside."


I am trying to imagine how this was possible, as the Andover was towed by the nosewheel?


Unless it was done with a pulley/hawser system, which would make extracting same even more elaborate!

Pigeons,

Hardly a leap of imagination. The ramp is around 4 feet in width, the Tugs wheel track is over eight. The tug drives in, and straddles the ramp, the aircraft nose wheel rides over it, in the process lowering the aircrafts tail, avoiding a coming together with the overhead hangar structure. An admirable solution to putting aircraft in hangars, not designed to accommodate their dimensions. I well remember the jiggling required to extract gliders from hangars whose orifices were less than the gliders wingspan. And of course, the F shed resolution at Abingdon with the Belfast, where the aircraft nose wheel was put on a raised "skate" to lower the tail and allow its unimpeded acces to the hangar. Hope that helps.

Smudge:ok:

Beendunbefore...
 

...at Woodley decades ago for the Herald's massive tail which wouldn't fit the hanger lintel. Tractor and trolley ramp just about did it, with us apprentices providing self-loading ballast. Looked as though the aircraft was about to do a very, very short take-off.

Was there a sound reason why it couldn't be towed a very short distance into a hangar whilst "kneeling"?

Kneeling Andovers
 

Iirc the Comms Andovers did not have the "kneeling undercarriage" which was fitted to ramp-equipped cargo aircraft (the majority).

XS637 was an Andover C.1 (which were kneeling Andovers).