Hastings arriving at Mauripur had usually left Negombo at all-up weight and so preparing the W&B sheet for the next lap to Habbaniya the aircraft would be facing strong head winds and we would be told that the a/c would need an extra 200 gallons over and above that taken on at Negombo.This meant of course that it would be overweight.The crew would have already be in the Officers Mess so I would phone the captain and inform him of this and the reply I would get was usually "lose something".So the water would disappear along with some of the freight from the paperwork but no way would we off-load passengers who were usually OR's who had completed their two years tour. Next morning the Captain would accept the new W&B showing the all-up weight at 80,000lbs knowing full well that the a/c was at least 1000lb overweight.Goodness knows what would have happened if the kite had crashed.
The UKH flights returning to the UK were usually converted to cas-vacs and at Mauripur we had a locally made ramp on an old 3 ton chassis to drive up to the cargo doors.This was powered by four coolie power with me at the wheel.I got quite proficient at steering the ramp up to the doors in one go.Attached photo of the contraption;I'm told that there was a similar one at Changi cheers jhy
