Suez the weapons seized

[skiprat]

Austin Champs did get to see service in Suez. They came ashore during the later beach landings.
It was one of the few times they operated as Combat Trucks (CT... not GS like the Land rover)
The American 106 recoilless rifle came from the French as the Americans wanted no part in the Action....

[Gil Boyd]

It would appear Champs were indeed underslung on Hastings aircraft in 58/59

Handley Page Hastings - Page 9 - PPRuNe Forums

[Paul S.]

Gil, I had a look through the posts on the link you provided. Flying a Hastings with all the drag of two underslung Champs must have been an adventure.

Side note: The first Hastings I saw in the flesh was at Singapore in early 1969 on my way through from Saigon to Sydney. The last Hastings I saw in the flesh was parked on the tarmac in Auckland. That had to be late 1970s or early 1980s.

[Peter Laidler]

How easy is it to maintain your Champ Skippy? Parts readily available still? Do you have the facility to put the old MoD number on it for show?

My parachute course was scheduled for Hastings aircraft but one crashed (near Abingdon strangely enough.....) with total fatalities so the course was cancelled for a month. Then went ahead on the first RAF Hercules that were ex USAF on loan until the arrival of the main MoD order from Lockheed.

[skiprat]

Many of the parts are British standard.... and many parts common across the post war vehicle fleet. Most parts are still available at a price, a bit of lateral thinking can get the price down, I got a B80 distributor ( including 2 condensers and 2 sets of points) for half the price of a B40 distributor..... They are the same !!!!!!!!

The Champ and other post war vehicles were designed to be maintained by REME tradesmen with little technical training, all the main assembly's are easy to remove as lumps.... Getting inside the lumps is where the hard work starts. The rear axle is a particularly weak area of the Champ but can be simply removed as a lump including drive shafts, ( fully independent suspension all round) suspension arms, wheel stubs.

Even the tin work of the body is been reproduced.

[Gil Boyd]

Peter,
Yes Little Baldon Parachute Regiment lads on their last jump mixed with a lot of RAF Jump Instructors getting their jumps in.......tragic

Little Baldon air crash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Peter Laidler]

Well, I'll be blowed......., that's it! I thought it would have been a bit later than that. My course went ahead in 1966..

Back to Skippies Champ...... It helps if the ASM is on side and you're allowed to use the ramps and pit in the main workshop