Patrick McL’s Photos
Beverley XB266 in Swaziland
The aircraft we were working on had hit the small shoulder in landing short at Matsapo. The very heavy landing damaged dynafocal mountings in the engines. It was assumed that everything else was O.K. and when we finished, the aircraft was ferried back to Eastleigh for a more thorough check. It was then found that the tailplane had major structural damage, and indeed it had been a lucky trip back.
A tailplane was sent down from Aden and sent by rail from Mombassa. Now I had seen a tailplane shipping crate before at Dishforth and it was huge. Sure enough the train had to unload onto a ‘Queen Mary’ well outside Nairobi to get the crate through.