And as soon as they got into the air, they had to refuel because what didn’t leak out on the ground was burned up in takeoff! Best part of my career was at Mildenhall, the pilots would come out to our shop to use the phone to call back to the states. Used to play backgammon with them.
Actually they took off deliberately with a partial fuel load to reduce stress, but mostly so the plane could still fly if they lost an engine on takeoff.
Which happened more than you might think.
Actually they took off deliberately with a partial fuel load to reduce stress, but mostly so the plane could still fly if they lost an engine on takeoff.
Which happened more than you might think.