At that time, as a pilot serving in the Royal Air Force (RAF) my backside was attached for many tedious hours to a Handley Page Hastings. This four-engine tail-dragger, in which every landing became an adventure, was a military transport obsolete before it entered service. Compared with its contemporaries, the shiny tricycle-gear Douglas C-54 Skymaster and C-124 Globemaster of the US Air Force's Military Air Transport Service (MATS), the Hastings was archaic. When landing at USAF bases, 'tower jockeys' would refer to our ship as a "four-motor Gooney Bird."
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