'Outside C of G Limits' by Brian Mollan

The cabin of a Wessex can be pretty cramped with a full load of beefy Bootnecks, complete with weapons, full combat gear and back packs.

 

I was part of a tactical formation of Wessii going into a rough jungle landing area in Malaya, with a full load of Bootnecks on board.

 

We were going in fast, and the leader flared hard prior to touch down. Accordingly I had to haul back hard on the stick to slow down, intending to level off to land. But the sphincter pucker factor increased as the tail continued to go down, even after I applied full forward pitch. The only way I could compensate was to lower the collective, before I would have chosen to.

 

Soon afterwards, the tail wheel hit the ground, the inadvertent rotation ended, and we were down.

 

In the subsequent debrief with my crewman, he told me that the troops in the rear seats opened the studs on the ‘ curtain ‘ that separates the cabin from the tail-cone, and passed a load of heavy back packs into the tail cone area, to give themselves more room. This pushed the C of G outside the safe operating range, and was made worse by the long moment arm from the designed C of G point.

 

I have since wondered how things might have turned out if I had had to perform the same manoeuvre at altitude.