Can this be true?:=

An even better one was a minor taxying accident at Kinloss before the move to Lossie - a wing tip was put into the nose of another Shackleton. Now wing tips are/were interchangeable, unfortunately no spare wing tips had been retained. However, on the other side of the runway was the fire dump, with a Mk 1 Shack waiting for the end. Over the weekend it lost a wing tip, the damaged one disappeared and the gash in the nose of the other one had a bit of BDR and paint, and on the Monday morning all were serviceable.

Now back to ASW.

Sugar was at Hendon for the opening in November 1972, and before that had been refurbished by 71 MU at Bicester, so it may well have been Jane that provided the tank.

Yes. (I was in the beer call at the time).

Me too. The boss was shocked, many of us immediately thought of imminent postings with the disbandment.

I don't recall any flak with the ground crew.

Memories are fading but I never forgot this.
In May 67 we went "Westabout" 201sqdn - 2 x Mk3 Ph3's, and having flown across the USA and beyond, we were approaching Honolulu. Our call sign (I think) was "Shackair" something or other, and the ATC controller identified us and asked, Are you an em kay one or an em kay 2?
I always remember the pride in the skippers voice as he answered "We are an MK3!

Re :Crashing sounds. I did as a kid (c.1954) witness a Mk2 that had been droning around for hours locally make a spectacular arrival at St.Eval. Something like this .U/c failed to retract due to a cocked tailwheel.After several non-successful cycling efforts, decision then made to burn off fuel down to landing weight.
Nice landing. I didn't know at the time but Haraka Snr. was following down the runway in a land rover,( a.k.a a Trabant PPruNe ? :) ).
Shackleton hands will well know what happened next.........
Since u/c was still selected "up" ( Oh Dear!)as the cocked tailwheel touched "terra firma" it kicked straight-Shackleton still doing a fair clip. So up come the main wheels and down goes the aeroplane on to its bellly. I do remember well the noise and the sparks!
I gather a later solution involved a crew member and a long pole............

You mean like this?

]https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8225/...e67c93c0_b.jpg

My tailwheel did not kick straight on landing (a real smoothie) but at least the u/c was not selected UP. And even on the centre line:

]https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8102/...01e772d8_b.jpg

Coningsby IIRC? :)

Haraka - wrong thread, I haven't put it in Which Aerodrome Mk III, but correct! Were you there?

Shackman
Oh Yes Indeed !
(we chatted about your memorable visit some years ago, including the participation of my esteemed ex -instructor K.B. )

Scrot? .

Haraka, KB and CBs' tales of their Shacklebomber times were always of great interest to us as ULAS students!

The range of experience amongst our QFIs was quite something; sadly that isn't the case these days :( .

Off to WW again this Saturday, will raise a cup of coffee (I'm driving) to our memories of those days!

BEAGS: It was only when we got out into the Service at large that we apppreciated just what these guys had given us:
Even: " He's zooming along in his PR9 ,having a PHENOMENAL time!!! "
This"superfit"guy was conned into believing that I was a Southern U.K.Squash Chanpion ."Who would always deny it"
Yeah ,Thanks Guys.

Actually he was "Creamin' along in his PR9, having a fee-no-meenal time!".

Caught up with him again at Chivenor on the Hawk some 15 years later and he didn't look a day older!

From memory, our QFIs had flown the Belvedere, Beverley, Canberra B(I)8, Canberra PR9, Hunter, Seafire, Shackleton, Victor - as well as various Training Command aircraft from Tiger Moth to Vampire T11 to Varsity.

Their tales of Shacklebomber times were rather more interesting than most. Although one did admit that the reason he'd been posted to Chipmunks was after having slept through a V-force alert when his wife hadn't woken him up - and when he went into work the next day he found that all the aircraft had deployed to their Strike Force Dispersal aerodromes....:oh:

Digressing, and hecopleter were words of their time after a couple of mis-prints in AP129.

Back on thread, and ASW, where visual bombing is likened to the ultimate game of darts, mailing a submarine takes it to a whole new level.

Bombing?

I did 3 or 4 famil trips over the years and recall filling in the transit hours by bombing the North Sea ferries. One person in the nose giving the “Now, now, NOW” countdown, another dropping a raw egg down the chute and another doing the scoring.

Not sure if we ever hit anything, but it must have confused the passengers.....

Pilot Bombing - 100ft, 160 kts - all part of monthly training, using 8½ lb break up bombs dropped in pairs 100 ft apart to simulate a stick of depth charges. Used against a towed target (usually by marine craft), with a lookout in the tail to give you a score; ideally 50/50 zero line - a straddle - but anything within (IIRC) 80/20 and 15, as the 'kill' radius of the standard DC was not very large. It was also part of your annual cat exam - no misses allowed. Add in a burst from the 20mm Hispanos in the nose and it got quite exciting!!

Nav Bombing - 500ft, 160 kts, 1 bomb against stationary target such as radar buoy or marker marine/flame float, simulating a torpedo drop on to a datum. All done day or night, night with the added excitement of flares firing on the run in and photo-flashes (nasty things) going off afterwards.

Tail wheels
 

When I was on 204 at Ballykelly in 66/7?, we were delivered of 2 Mk 2 phase 3 Shacks. During the compass swing outside the Sqn buildings, the driver of the tug pulled the tailwheel off one of the new Shacks. So it could easily happened in Lossie as well.

Oh yes, the joys of handwritten amendments to AP129:

"delete hicopleter, insert heciplopter"

"They" did get it right the next time.

Sorry - some of us are showing our age!

Ken, shows how diligent we were in amending and digesting the bible. Mrs PN thought it was my dyslexia until a friend, unpropmted, came out with the same word.

For those interested, there is an hour long documentary on the Shackleton coming up 16 April on Movies4men. It's at 3am so remember to set your recorders. You may see a few familiar faces !

Ahh, Trebelzue gate, the short cut back to 42 in the early ‘60’s after a liquid lunch at Auntie Pearl’s AKA The Riviera Lodge, now sadly closed and redeleveloped.

Shackeltons
 

Almost Two years on 204 quadron,best ever time in Coastal command.Many adventures as a lowlyLAC/SAC but cannot compare to aircrew stories!
Did sit in the left hand seat for half an hour which made my day!

When my Dad was on Shacks in Malta (1956) they had ASV13.

He says they largely relied on visual detection of Submarines and only used ASV13 at night when but they still relied on Flares and visuals.

I think in those days the Med was pretty clean and clear around Malta.

He has told me that had an MR2 with an Airborne Lifeboat fitted (and Lindholme gear) when he arrived. They only had one lifeboat (I kid you not) and were told it was not to be used except in an emergency. Shortly afterwards it was withdrawn from use and they were given authorisation to drop the Lifeboat. Guess what - it sank without trace.......................

He had a great time on Shacks for 2 years before being posted back to UK.

Arc

Shack Trip

RAF Sharjah 1970. As a young DFGA Hunter pilot I thought it would be amusing to see how the other half lived, i.e. a trip in one of the Mk2s of the resident 210 Sqn. They still had the 20mm front guns, sadly left unloaded.

Surprisingly, the captain was an AEO, and we spent most of the 8hr sortie at 250ft, cruising all the way round the coast of Oman, looking for smugglers and drug-runners.

The noise was appalling. Wherever you sat you could not escape it. I ended up lying down at the extremity of the tail observation boom to get away from it. We eventually climbed to 1500 ft to fly a practice GCA at Sharjah.