Page 70 - Demo

66difficult the nav announced at this point that he had lied about the all up weight of the aircraft so as to put us in a lower band for landing fees! We got airborne eventually but had to climb to 10,000ft in the overhead. It took us quite a while but when we got to 8000ft we could no longer turn and climb so they eventually let us go climbing to 10,000ft en route. The take-off had been scary as the first chunk of the runway was made up of large concrete paving slabs that were by no means smooth. I had done the landing and put the aircraft down after that bit of runway. However, to get airborne we needed all the runway. The aircraft was shaking itself to bits as we accelerated and then we hit the step onto the runway proper. The aircraft leapt into the air and then came crashing down with a huge jolt. After that the runway was smoother and we got airborne safely. We night stopped in Malta and then again in Gibraltar. I had an impress for the return home, this was normally the copilots job and so when we went into the casino in Gib I did have $1500 in a money belt and wondered whether I should gamble it! As the coplot I also had the inventory for the aircraft. That showed that we had 2 ECM aerials which looked like chimneys on the fuselage. I thought it unlikely but eventually found a spare one on board somewhere. I seem to remember that we theoretically were one propellor blade short. I ignored that. The artificial horizon on the left hand of the cockpit failed at some point after Gibraltar and as this was the primary instrument flying aid it was very annoying. To fly an aircraft even as stable as a Shackleton on limited panel required a great deal of concentration and I had had no instrument flying practice for 2 months. We were in cloud most of the way back which meant that I had 4 hours on limited panel which was hard work. When it was Paddy%u2019s turn to fly, he decided to stay in the right-hand seat which I thought a bit mean.